Problem: 5%-35% of road deaths are reported as alcohol-related.

Solution: Enforcement of drink-driving laws is one of the most effective interventions for reducing the number of lives lost due to unintentional crash injury. It has to be persistent and considerable.

Recommendation: Drink-driving may be indicative of broader health issues and should be considered when targeting drink-driving reductions.

Read More:

• Proceedings of the PIARC International Seminar on: “Road Safety in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Issues and Countermeasures”

Problem: Despite the progress made in improving legislation across the five key behavioral risk factors (speeding, drink-driving, helmet use, seat-belt use, distracted driving) enforcement remains a major challenge in most countries, especially in the LMICs.

Solution: Establish a dedicated enforcement agency, provide training and ensure adequate equipment for enforcement activities. Legislation must be both enforceable and consistently enforced to have effect.

Recommendation: LMICs need to be open to considering strategies that are tried and tested in other countries/regions. This might include adoption of novel technologies such as alcohol interlocks and seat-belt warning systems.

Read More:

• Proceedings of the PIARC International Seminar on: “Road Safety in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Issues and Countermeasures”

Problem: Unless roads are designed and managed to account for human factors, it is unlikely that a Safe System can be achieved.

Solution: Road Safety Authorities must enact and enforce road safety legislation. It is equally important to ensure road infrastructure accounts for the needs of all road users and is designed to facilitate safe behaviors, including: clear road signage and road markings that are intuitive, use of roundabouts and traffic calming designs such as speed humps, physical separation of road users including use of protected bicycle lanes and pedestrian only zones.

Recommendation: The road transport system needs to anticipate and accommodate for human errors and prevent consequent death or serious injury, in all sorts of environments and circumstances (e.g. even in temporal environments such as workzones).

Read More:

• Road Safety Manual - Planning, Design & Operation - Designing for Road Users
• Human Factors Guidelines for a Safer Man-Road Inteface

Problem: Crash occurrence due to human factors involves the 6-second rule (drivers need 4-6 seconds to adapt to a new driving environment), the field of view rule (safe field of view to correctly choose speed) and the logic rule (follow driver’s perception logic).

Solution: Carry out safety evaluations based on human factors method, performing dedicated on-site inspections made by an interdisciplinary team of designers, safety engineers and human factors experts, following a specific inspection protocol.

Recommendation: This approach supports LMICs that are still at the starting phase of the road safety management process.

Read More:

• Road Safety Evaluations based on Human Factors Method
• The Role of Road Engineering in Combating Driver Distraction and Fatigue Road Safety Risks