We need to talk about language: road safety or road danger reduction?

The inaugural National Vision Zero & 20's Plenty Conference will hear from a wide range of voices, from ‘traditional’ road safety to ‘transformative’ road danger reduction – and a key aim of the event is to find a consensus for taking Vision Zero forward in the UK

The first road safety strategy in over a decade is to be published by the Government after saying the number of deaths on UK roads has become “normalised”. 

The Department for Transport (DfT) published figures for reported road casualties in Great Britain in September 2024. Former Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, told MPs on the Transport Committee: “We have started the process to set in place the first road safety strategy in this country for over a decade. 

“We’re looking really carefully and taking evidence from other countries where they have Vision Zero to see what’s worked and adopt a whole system approach, because this can’t just be a Department for Transport owned policy. It needs to be across Government, whether it be in education or the criminal justice system, to look at the most effective measures.”

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On 15 May, during the 8th UN Global Road Safety Week, hear from the UK's Vision Zero, Safe Systems, 20's Plenty, behavioural science, active travel and road danger reduction pioneers at the National Vision Zero & 20's Plenty Conference in Liverpool

One thing we do need is systemic change rather than tinkering. There needs to be a challenge to motor-normativity – not a 'war against motorists',  but maybe the end of the war against the un-motored

Move to Vision Zero

The move to a Vision Zero approach in the UK needs a focal point and an agreed narrative. That's why Landor LINKS is holding the inuagural National Vision Zero & 20's Plenty Conference on 15 May in Liverpool. There will be a wide range of views being represented at this event, from ‘traditional’ road safety to ‘transitional’ road danger reduction – and a key aim of the event is to find a consensus for taking Vision Zero forward.

With recent DfT figures showing that there were 1,624 road traffic fatalities in 2023, a decline of only 5% compared to the previous year, there is an urgent need for action. Some 29,711 people were killed or seriously injured (KSI), little change compared to 2022, while there were 132,977 casualties of all severities, a decline of 2% year-on-year. The DfT data shows that vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists disproportionately affected. 

Research suggests that most national governments are failing to significantly improve road safety due in part to an incomplete picture of the number of injuries on the roads and a lack of data on where and when incidents occurred. This is according to a new report from the European Transport Safety Council.

A major contributing factor in these incidents is human error: it is estimated that 88% of road traffic crashes in the UK are caused by human error, including behaviours like speeding, distraction from mobile phones, running red lights or failing to give way. In the light of these numbers, it may come as a surprise that a study DG Cities conducted in December 2024 indicates that many do not consider improving road safety a priority: when they asked a representative sample of 1,000 UK respondents to select their top two priorities for the UK transport system, only 37% chose road safety; a low proportion compared to the 53% who chose affordability and the 46% who chose nationwide equality. 

Road safety may not be at the forefront of public concern because, quite simply, many are not aware of the scale of the problem

One possible reason for this is that the above statistics are not, in fact, common knowledge: when asked to guess the number of KSIs on UK roads in 2023, a staggering 92% of the sample reported an estimate below the official figure and the average estimate only came to 11,402 – less than half of the official figure. In other words, road safety may not be at the forefront of public concern because, quite simply, many are not aware of the scale of the problem.

A recent UK study also found that heavier cars are more likely to be involved in fatal collisions – and that the average car weight in the UK is increasing, which may lead to a rise in fatal collisions if the trend continues. Reducing car weight could mitigate the severity and frequency of collisions.

Given these figures, current Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is also keen to pursue road safety. Shortly after taking up her post, she said: "I was appointed three weeks ago and one of the first things I said to do was to get the team in who are working on a new road safety strategy that my predecessor committed to." She added that the Government will prioritise those measures that are most effective. 

Safety, health and well-being in a common approach

For many, the concept of Vision Zero is the way forward, and many UK local and transport authorities are following Europe by developing Vision Zero strategies. Vision Zero is based on a “Safe Systems” approach that has been adopted in many other industries and modes of transport to great effect: Safe Vehicles, Safe Roads, Safe Behaviour, Safe Speeds, and a victim-focused Post-Crash Response.

Vision Zero acknowledges that many factors contribute to safe mobility – including roadway design, speeds, behaviours, technology, and policies – and sets clear goals to achieve the shared goal of zero fatalities or severe injuries. 

When combined with Road Danger Reduction (see below), Vision Zero moves on from traditional methods for managing road safety that use casualty reduction as the dominant measure of success. It's a transformational system that integrates the three dimensions of safety, health and well-being into a common approach.

Underlying the Vision Zero strategy is a holistic approach that shifts responsibility from the people using roads to the people designing them, so creating a safe mobility system that is forgiving of human error. Human beings are the priority players in a Vision Zero system.

However, there is a view among many campaigners that even more needs to be done. They suggest that there has been an unfair bias in road safety management which has given the most dangerous modes of transport (motor vehicles) the best safety measures, and the most benign modes the least protection.

For these campaigners, Vision Zero also acknowledges that the principal source of danger on the road is motor vehicles and seeks to reduce this danger at source. Many professionals in this field are suggesting that we stop talking about Road Safety and instead rename the field by referring to the actual problem we are trying to solve – Road Danger and Road Danger Reduction.

We need to talk about language...

Forward to April 2025, and the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) has acknowledged that how we talk about road safety, road danger reduction, vulnerable road users and accidents shapes the debate.

Says PACTS: "Language is never neutral. It reflects our values, our assumptions, and our priorities.

As transport safety professionals, we hold influence in how collisions are understood and how change is pursued

"As transport safety professionals, we hold influence in how collisions are understood and how change is pursued. Deaths and serious injuries in the transport system don’t have to be inevitable. Choosing our words with the same care we give in our daily work of designing, building, managing, or delivering can make all the difference to long term outcomes."

In her guest blog for PACTS, journalist Laura Laker, speaking of road collisions, says: "Calling them ‘accidents’ assumes no-one is at fault and nothing could have been done before we know any of the facts.

"Saying ‘a car mounted the kerb’, or ‘a car was speeding’, without mentioning any driver obscures the role of people in crashes. People are license holders. More accurately ‘a driver was speeding’ or ‘a vehicle being driven on “A-road” hit a pedestrian’ – language we already use when the striking ‘vehicle’ is a cyclist. This small change shifts the audience focus away from vulnerable road users by up to 30%. That’s huge."

In 2022, says Laura, she authored the UK’s first Road Collision Reporting Guidelines to try and improve media accuracy around road crashes. However, the media listens to, and often copies verbatim, language from professionals; ‘common usage’ in journalist parlance. That’s why I spent part of a year working with blue light services, among others, says Laura, to improve language ‘upstream’, while producing a handbook for press offices. The results were positive: police services, backed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the fire service, backed by the National Fire Chiefs Council, have almost phased out the word ‘accident’ entirely, and committed to further improvements. National Highways is phasing out ‘accident’, backed by new government legislation.

Road safety or road danger reduction? Accident or collision?

Attitudes to 'road safety' and 'road danger reduction' are changing. Politicians are currently proposing a change in the law so that cyclists who kill pedestrians by acting dangerously on the road could face life imprisonment. Currently, cycling offenders can be imprisoned for no more than two years under an 1861 law originally intended for drivers of horse-drawn carriages.

A government amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill - which is currently going through Parliament - would see cycling offences brought in line with driving offences, the Department for Transport (DfT) said.

One thing we do need is "systemic change rather than tinkering", says Rod King, founder of 20's Plenty for Us. There needs to be a challenge to motor-normativity – not a 'war against motorists',  but maybe the end of the war against the un-motored.

"We need a strategic change in culture at National, Regional and Local level."