Jeremy Woolley, Director CASR, University of Adelaide Lessons from Road Safety

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The University of Adelaide Slide 1
Lessons from Road Safety
Associate Professor Jeremy Woolley, T Bailey and S Raftery
casr.adelaide.edu.au@CASR_RoadSafety

2. Research comparing WHS and Road Safety
Woolley, J. E., Bailey, T. J., & Raftery, S. J. (2014). What can work health and
safety learn from road safety? (CASR121). Adelaide: Centre for Automotive
Safety Research.
Bailey, T. J., Woolley, J. E., & Raftery, S. J. (2015). Compliance and
Enforcement in Road Safety and Work Health and Safety: A
Comparison. Journal of Health, Safety and Environment, 31(2).
Bailey, T. J., Woolley, J. E., & Raftery, S. J. (2015). Does road safety have
any lessons for workplace health and safety. Journal of the Australasian
College of Road Safety, 26(2), 26-33.
http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/publications/list/
The University of Adelaide Slide 2

3. The University of Adelaide Slide 3
“In road injury epidemiology,
kinetic energy is the pathogen”
LS Robertson – Epidemiologist.

4. Kinetic Energy
The University of Adelaide Slide 4
Average Speed 37.5 km/h
𝑬𝑬 =
𝟏𝟏
𝟐𝟐
𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎 𝒙𝒙 𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗𝒗 𝒗𝒗2
Medium.com
Usain bolt
tac.vic.gov.au
Graham > 50 km/h

5. Errors in the road transport system
People are set up for failure
Legacy of an inherently unsafe system
From human fallability to system protection
The University of Adelaide Slide 5

6. Road deaths in Australia last 20 years
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
CRISIS – do something
Reductions occurring
– good job, business as usual
Who has noticed this?
The system is broken
The University of Adelaide

7. Cumulative Australian Fatalities since 1925
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
160000
180000
200000
1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
191,549 souls
and counting
The University of Adelaide
Annual Fatalities
CRISIS – do something
Reductions occurring
– good job, business as usual
CRISIS – do something
Reductions occurring
– good job, business as usual
Cumulative
Fatalities

8. A key perspective is being missed
There is a disaster heading our way
A drip feed of trauma with no end in sight
10 yrs: 12,000 killed and >360,000 admitted at a $300b drag to the economy
Aside from past victims, we are harming future generations
We need to move from coping to fixing
Our task is not to make roads safer,
our task is to make the road transport system SAFE
The University of Adelaide

9. A better strategic response
Evolution of the Safe System approach
From:
• Singular focus on education and punishing those who break road rules
• A wider understanding of the multitude of factors that contribute to pre-crash
causes leading to small incremental tweaks of the system
To:
• An ethical approach that demands a holistic approach and renewed duty of care
• An evolving focus on consequence
• Institutional leadership in road safety and inter-government co-ordination
• Other tools in the toolkit (voluntary compliance, diversification and beyond roads)
The University of Adelaide Slide 9

10. Inquiry into the National Strategy
Delivered September 2018
Headline Findings
• Lack of leadership
• Lack of a focus on harm elimination
• Harm elimination not integrated into “Business as Usual”
• Implementation failure
• Tools and frameworks only now emerging
• Scope, definition and accountability with actions largely lacking
• Stimulus and Scale
• Lack of capacity and capability
• Safety teams lack influence across organisations
• Time bound target of elimination
The University of Adelaide Slide 10

11. The University of Adelaide Slide 11

12. The University of Adelaide Slide 12
“To plan is human,
to implement,
divine”
Harvard urban planning and design
Professor Jerold Kayden

13. Road safety successes
Headline Successes
• Legislation, enforcement backed up by mass
media
• Seat belts
• Random breath testing
• Speed (camera) enforcement
• Graduated licensing system (GLS)
• Evolving vehicle (occupant) safety
• Black spot programs
• Incremental road engineering improvements
• Speed management (when accomplished)
Taken for granted
Considerable traffic enforcement resource (25%)
An ability to mass enforce based on the common
good
Adoption of strong road safety legislation
Registration and licencing systems
A largely compliant majority of road users
Crash and injury databases
The University of Adelaide Slide 13

14. Road safety challenges
• Operating speeds are still contentious
• Fatigue management in the general population
• Fitness to drive and impaired driving
• Increasing technological assistance & automation
• Increasing current level of resource commitment
• Getting above a 3% fatality reduction per year is a
big deal
• Infrastructure can contribute up to 60%
• Scale and timeframes are an issue
• No sense of urgency – the drip feed goes on forever
Enablers
• Mainstreaming harm elimination
• Focus on transformation of the system rather than
fixing isolated elements
• Building capacity and capability
• Avoid safety as a trade-off
• Avoid safety as an add-on
• Safety performance indicators and more strategic
data
• Public release of risk data
The University of Adelaide Slide 14

15. A system based response has been a feature of
Australian road safety before
NSW October and
December 1989
Kempsey 21 killed and
22 injured
Grafton 35 killed and
41 injured
The University of Adelaide

16. A system based response is largely overlooked
in the multitude of daily crash events …
Crashes must be regarded as
system failures rather than
isolated individual events
Source: AdelaideNow
The University of Adelaide

17. The University of Adelaide Slide 17
Duty of Care
A moral and ethical obligation System designers are
responsible for the design
of the road transport
system and are thereby
responsible for the level
of safety within the entire
system.
Road users are
responsible for
following the rules
for using the road
transport system
set by the system
designers.
If the users fail to
comply with these rules,
the system designers are
required to take the
necessary further steps
to counteract people
being killed or injured.
Road Safety is
everyone’s
responsibility
Source: Johan Strandroth

18. We became curious
How does WHS compare to Road Safety?
Robens Report 1972
• Processes rather than prescriptive standards to be
met
• Self-regulation
• Duty of care
• Notion of reasonably practicable
• Differences within and between jurisdictions
• Reactive responses rather than systemic
development of standards
• Lack of incentive to find more effective solutions
• Poor resourcing for enforcement
The University of Adelaide Slide 18
Road Safety
• Haddon’s Matrix
• Safe System
• Australia – world leading gains with enforcement
• Victim blaming is still entrenched in society
• Zero harm is still a conceptual hurdle

19. WHS and Road Safety
Commonalities
The University of Adelaide Slide 19
Mature safety culture has precedence over reactions to individual events RS – feedback loop still largely associated with serious or fatal injury events
From victim blaming to challenging those who create the risk in the first
place
RS – feedback loop mainly exists in relation to serious injury and fatal events
From accidents to preventable incidents RS - Duty of care is still clouded by misinterpretations of the notion of
shared responsibility
Reactive to pro-active
Individuals tend to normalise risk (Optimism Bias)
Unrealistic expectations of the potential for training programs to deliver
solutions in isolation
Likelihood of detection, swiftness of applying a penalty and penalty severity
are key to securing compliance
Many offences and infringements regarded as non-criminal
Enforcement efforts becoming increasingly targetted to where the risks most
frequently occur
Hierarchies of risk control RS – most emphasis still placed on road user performance

20. Risk Control Comparison
Safe Work Australia National RS Strategy and ISO 39001
Eliminate exposure of the user to the hazard Safe journey planning
Use of appropriate roads
Substitute the hazard to the user for one with something
safer
Segregation of traffic streams according to vehicle type
and road user
Isolate the hazard from people Use of vehicles with safer designs
Reduce the risks through engineering (and technological
controls)
Road design, treatments and safe speeds
Land Use Planning
dvanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS)
Reduce exposure to the hazard using administrative
controls
Licencing regimes by class of vehicle
Removal of unfit drivers and riders
GLS for novice drivers
Use of personal protective equipment Seatbelts, helmets, lights, (high vis) etc
The University of Adelaide Slide 20

21. Areas for review of work safety
Based on lessons from Road Safety
1. Role of enforcement in WHS (specific and general deterrence, time halos, targetted vs randomised,
how this may relate to behavioural theory, support provided by information campaigns)
2. Research programs in support of obtaining data on effectiveness of WHS targeted interventions
3. Effectiveness of other (non-prosecution) compliance measures (improvement and prohibition notices,
adverse publicity measures)
4. Role of rewards and incentives and context in which they are effective
5. Applicability of the regulatory pyramid as a tool to plan WHS intervention strategy
6. Systematic examination of the causes of violations, patterns and individual and system based
perspectives
7. Robust feedback loops for improving WHS systems –> no blame risk management culture
8. Case for more chains of responsibility and accountability (esp in high risk industries)
9. Is there a balance of cost-effective solutions as distinct from just regulatory ones?
10. Possibilities for adopting worker – management negotiated forms of compliance
The University of Adelaide Slide 21

22. Areas for review of work safety
Based on lessons from Road Safety
11. Possibility of a more substantial evidence base for WHS policy and action:
• Database linking
• Broader performance indicators rather than just outcome measures (injuries and fatalities)
• Financial benefits of safety improvements, not just the costs of WHS failures (and willingness to pay
calculations)
12. Manner in which participants are identified for an industry improvement program
13. Data on novice worker deaths and injuries (esp 15 – 24 yo) and feasibility of graduated acclimatisation
to work
14. If WHS worksite audit provisions could be tailored to accommodate alternative, negotiated forms of
compliance
The University of Adelaide Slide 22

23. Safe System / Vision Zero
What does it really mean?
• A journey in pursuit of a harm elimination agenda
How do we earn our stripes?
• Transformational change of the system – the system must become the safety net
• Not about safer but SAFE – the quality of the response is important
What response is required?
• Establishing the climate and ability to do things differently
• Commitment to a long term strategy with actions at a scale that matters
• Actions defined and resourced in a harm elimination context
Ensuring Resilience?
• Embedding harm elimination in “business as usual”
• Moving from principles and intent to normalised practice
• Maintaining capacity in bureaucracies, enforcement, research, private sector and in advocates
The University of Adelaide

24. The University of Adelaide Slide 24casr.adelaide.edu.au
Evidence led policy can take a long time!