How do we get people to change behaviours to improve safety on our roads?

6 December 2023

Deirdre O’Reilly at National Highways takes a variety of behavioural, social and physical factors into account when seeking to enable, engage and support people to change behaviours and drive safely on England’s motorways and major A-roads.

At National Highways, the organisation that manages and improves England’s motorways and major A roads, safety is our first imperative and we champion a Safe Systems approach to delivering it. Through this holistic approach we work collaboratively to design and deliver a network that enables and encourages users to make safe, smooth and sustainable journeys.

A golden thread running through the holistic Safe Systems approach is the need to understand people and how to support them to behave safely. We recognise that road users are active participants in the safe system and we need to engage and work with them if we are to continuously improve safety and their make journeys better.

Behaviour change is a marathon not a sprint. In order to enable people to change their behaviour and for that change to be sustained, we need to understand the behaviour; who is doing it and why; the barriers and motivators to changing it and what are the best approaches to take when to engage and enable, encourage and – if appropriate – enforce change.