Panel Discussions

Countries which have achieved significant reductions in road traffic fatalities have done so by engaging many sectors of society. These include governmental agencies dealing with transport, health, education and law enforcement as well as nongovernmental organizations, private companies and the media. This panel will discuss different models of multisectoral collaboration and the key ingredients to successful partnerships for road safety. It will make recommendations on ways to strengthen such partnerships in the future.

National and local policies, targets and plans are an important element to ensure strategic and coordinated action for road safety. They also serve as the framework for the creation and adoption of national legislation on related issues. The development of multisectoral policies, targets and plans requires a comprehensive 'safe systems' approach based on a sound analysis of data. Their implementation requires political commitment, funding and clearly assigned responsibilities and accountability for each phase of implementation. This panel will draw lessons from different approaches used to develop, implement and evaluate such policies, targets and plans.

The health sector can contribute to road safety by improving emergency trauma care and rehabilitation, by supporting and evaluating prevention efforts focusing on changing people's behaviour on the road, by collecting and analyzing data and by supporting advocacy efforts. While road traffic injuries have a significant impact on health, the health sector response has remained limited in many countries. This panel will provide examples of contributions made by the health sector and recommend ways to strengthen the health sector's involvement in road safety in the future.

Compliance by road users with laws relating to the key risk factors for traffic crashes and injuries is a key target for road injury prevention. However enacting laws that  are not always comprehensive and without adequate enforcement and explanation undermines their impact. Several countries have demonstrated that comprehensive laws and effective enforcement of these combined with public education campaigns to create a culture of safety are elements vital to the success of road safety programmes. This panel will discuss examples of successful law enforcement strategies and public education campaigns and will focus in particular on the necessary synergies of these two approaches. Recommendations will be made for strengthening and - where appropriate - harmonizing these approaches in the future.

The road infrastructure is a key element of the systems approach to road safety.  Thoughtfully designed and constructed 'forgiving' road infrastructure can be a major contributor to the protection of all road users, including vulnerable road users. Successful road traffic injury prevention strategies have focused on improving road  infrastructure and network management  which takes into account the human tendency to make errors. This panel will discuss strategies to improve infrastructure and network management and possibilities for harmonizing approaches across countries.

Considerable progress has been made in vehicle design over the past decades bringing improvements both to crashworthiness and crash avoidance. However, further  improvements are  still needed especially  in relation to protecting vulnerable road users. In addition, many new or second hand vehicles are still being sold without meeting minimum safety standards. This panel will discuss ways to further improve vehicle design, and options to ensure that vehicles which are currently being produced and sold meet minimum globally harmonized safety construction standards. It will discuss successes in such harmonization and explore potential for additional progress in this area.

Effective road safety policies and plans are based on a sound analysis of robust data with regards to the human and economic impact of road traffic crashes. Few countries have detailed and accurate information on fatal and non-fatal injuries, the types of road users most affected, the cost to their national economies and health systems in particular as well as setting and evaluating targets which assess the impact of approaches used to improve road safety. Harmonizing definitions and data collection efforts in general would improve the possibilities for strategic planning and for international comparisons. This panel will discuss successful approaches and options for improving and harmonizing data collection to enhance policy making.