Edinburgh has a statutory duty under section 39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to provide a road safety service which must include measures to promote road safety through education, training and publicity and to undertake studies into road traffic collisions and take steps to reduce and prevent them.
Road safety refers to the methods, measures, and behaviors aimed at preventing road deaths, injuries, and serious incidents, protecting all users (pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, passengers) by focusing on safe roads, speeds, vehicles, user behavior, and post-crash care, often through education, legislation (like the Highway Code), and infrastructure design. It's a shared responsibility involving individuals obeying rules and governments implementing systems to minimize risk, recognizing that humans make mistakes but serious harm is preventable.
In 2021 the Scottish Government published Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030. In line with the report the ‘Draft Road Safety Action Plan to 2030’.
This report supports the objectives of the City Mobility Plan. The actions are formulated and focused to achieve the targets.
The targets set out in the draft action plan, to be met by 2030, either meet or exceed the targets set out in the national Road Safety Framework. Edinburgh’s proposed targets are
- zero fatalities
- at least a 50% reduction in people seriously injured
- at least a 60% reduction in children and young people (under 18 years old) seriously injured
- at least a 40% reduction in pedestrians seriously injured
- at least a 30% reduction in cyclists seriously injured
- at least a 30% reduction in motorcyclists seriously injured
- at least a 20% reduction in road users aged 65 and over seriously injured
- at least a 70% reduction in road users aged between 18 to 24 seriously injured.
How do we get there?
The actions which are required to achieve these goals are based around the Safe Systems Approach. The Safe Systems Approach is divided into five different areas. We are delivering actions across all five different areas to make a lasting impact on road safety and work towards our set targets:
- Safe vehicles
- Safe roads
- Safe speeds
- Safe road users
- Post-crash response