Focus on Speed Management - Professional Resources

7 January 2021

This year Road Safety Week 17-23 May will focus on speed management. Many professionals will be planning programmes for the week and be working on plans to improve the management of speed in their areas of influence.

They know only too well that speed management is a very important tool for improving road safety. However, improving compliance with speed limits and reducing unsafe driving speeds are not easy tasks. Many drivers do not recognize the risks involved and often the perceived benefits of speeding outweigh the perceived problems that can result.

Each month we will be highlighting valuable knowledge sources to support this work.

This month we focus on two:

The first is the European Road Safety Observatory's thematic report which gives road safety practitioners an overview of the most important research questions and results on the topic in question.

Speeding in road traffic Driving at excessive or inappropriate speed is a major threat to safety on the road. It is estimated that 10 to 15% of all crashes and 30% of all fatal crashes are the direct result of speeding or inappropriate speed. The faster someone is driving, the higher the risk of a crash, but also the higher the severity of the crash and the probability that the crash is fatal. Another important factor influencing the crash risk are differences in vehicle speed. The less the speeds of vehicles differ from each other, the lower the risk of a crash.  The main factors affecting the impact of speed-related crashes are: the design of the road, the safety systems in vehicles, differences in mass between the colliding vehicles/ road users, and the vulnerability of the road users. The probability that a vulnerable road user (pedestrian, cyclist, motorcyclist) will die in a collision with a passenger car or truck is much higher than that for the occupants of a vehicle. This is one of the main arguments in favour of the introduction of low speed zones in densely populated areas.

The second is: Speed Management - A manual for decision makers and practitioners.

This is one of a series of manuals which propose simple, effective and cost-effective solutions that can save many lives and reduce the shocking burden of road traffic crashes around the world.