Citation

Degener S. Proc. Road Saf. Four Continents Conf. 2010; 15: 319-330.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Conference Sponsor)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

The accident situation on streets of Europe is very high furthermore. In 2007 42.453 people died on the EU27 roads. In Germany the number of killed person on the streets is still 4.949.The aim that the EU gives itself in the white paper in 2001(halve the number of the traffic dead person till 2010) has not been reached. In 2010 important points are put for the road safety work. The European committee has initiated with different events the Stakeholder process for the Road Safety action programs 2011 - 2020. The Federal Government in Germany also wants to provide a new road safety program. To promote best practice into that process Germany could give a successful example: "the method of accident investigation", that is suitable to the imitation internationally. Accidents do not only result from mistakes made by humans using the road - they can also be caused by factors such as faults in the road environment (e.g. narrow bend, missing safety barrier, etc.). Many of those faults have no repercussions because of the "safety allowance" inherent in the road-traffic system. That "allowance" comes into play when weather, road or traffic conditions are poor or when a vehicle is poorly equipped. However, if several of these risk factors occur at once (e.g. night time, rain, poor road markings and worn tyres), a moment's inattentiveness is often enough to cause an accident. Consequently, accidents are often found to be due to a combination of several causes, not one single cause. The special about frequent accident sites (FAS) is the prevalence of local contributing factors. These factors arise from aspects such as faults in alignment, intersection layouts, signing, road markings or traffic devices. If one accident- inducing factor in the road environment can be isolated, described and then remedied, the "safety allowance" at that site will increase. The result will be fewer and/or less severe accidents. So a large number of causes doesn't mean a large number of measures is required. Since several factors at the site in question could have an accident-inducing effect, several measures may be suitable but only one of them needs to be selected. It is the Accident Committees' task to devote their efforts to eliminating FAS. Part of this work is also to make the importance of their work clear to others. The German government has required locally based accident committees since 1971. More than 500 of these city- and county-committees exist, and they are required to meet at least twice a year. The multidisciplinary committee typically are composed of seven or eight members or including police officers and representatives of the road construction sector and the traffic authorities. The legislative requirement to have these committees has in formalized and made commonplace the process of multidisciplinary local safety analysis in Germany. Accident Committees are one important part of a network road safety management.