Conclusion

The United States has-over a long period now-steadily improved its fatality rate per unit of travel, but by nowhere near the extent achieved by many other Western motorized nations. Over the past decade the number of deaths has slowly increased. This case study from Victoria, Australia, illustrates what could be achieved: Many thousands of lives could be saved each year.

The first step is to find a "champion," an individual or group that can help create political and community saliency.

The second step is to introduce new measures of traffic safety performance. Total reliance on deaths per unit of road use is suboptimal because it implies that improvement in this rate is a sufficient goal. It also accepts that there is a price to be paid for mobility and that the greater the road use, the higher that price will be in total.

The third step is to develop an evidence-based strategic plan with objective targets and effective accountability mechanisms.

The final step is to harness all of the key players and implement the plan in an integrated, effective manner. The issues to be addressed and the range of acceptable measures will require a partnership among many organizations.