Citation

Morgan R. J. Road Safety 2022; 33(2): 75-78.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Australasian College of Road Safety)

DOI

10.33492/JRS-D-22-00001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Blaming drivers for crashes remains popular. However it can let road authorities evade responsibility for their contribution. A recent fatal crash is reviewed. While media reports focused on the supposed failures of one of the drivers, an assessment of the on-site conditions points to the contribution of erroneous signing and a misleading road layout. These are matters wholly within the road authority's responsibility and could easily have been rectified years before the fatal crash. Yet they are aspects that receive little public scrutiny. Examination of the principles behind the Safe System shows that one principle - that road safety is 'a shared responsibility' - contributes to the problem. The final act before a crash may well be road user error, but the critical causal factor is often associated with physical features of the road that led to the error.


Keywords traffic sign, driver error, shared responsibility

Language: en