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oa STRADA: Road traffic accident and injury data in Sweden
- Source: Journal of Local and Global Health Science, Volume 2015, Issue Proceedings of the 24th World International Traffic Medicine Association Congress, Qatar 2015, Nov 2015, 98
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- 12 November 2015
- 12 November 2015
Abstract
If every driver in Sweden were to obey the speed limits there would be more than 100 lives spared each year. Every reduction of 1 km/h on average speed in the country saves approximately 20 lives per year (SRA 2015). One of many important measures in the later road safety work in Sweden is a project attempting to reduce speed, namely the implementation of speed cameras. Without a comprehensive increase in traffic surveillance it is difficult to achieve traffic safety (VTI 2005). The Swedish Road Administration together with the National Police Board put up the first speed cameras, or road safety cameras, in the late 1990’s and at the end of 2014 there were 1200 cameras monitoring 3000 kilometer of road stretches in Sweden. Before deciding where to install the road safety cameras the Swedish road traffic crash- and injury surveillance system, STRADA, was used to spot where accidents happened most frequently. STRADA is also a tool in the follow up work when evaluating the effects of the road safety cameras. The road safety camera project has been and still is a successful road safety work. When looking at data from STRADA from three examples (road 222, 225 and 268) of the approximately 120 roads with speed cameras one can see, when comparing a four year period before and after speed cameras, fatal accidents was reduced from a total of 8 to 3, and accidents with serious injuries as an outcome was reduced from 65 to 28. The road safety cameras have reduced the average speed on roads with cameras with 5% and are now appreciated to save up 20 lives and up to 50 persons from being seriously injured per year in Sweden. Speed monitoring with road safety cameras has shown to be a successful way of reducing speed and save lives on Swedish roads. Every year the cameras prevent 20 people from being killed in traffic and 50 persons are prevented from being seriously injured. In order to evaluate road safety work such as speed cameras there has to be measurements made before and after the intervention. Using data from STRADA has both been contributing to the foundation of the road safety camera project and also one of the important tools for follow up. References: Swedish Transport Administration: Trafiksäkerhetskameror (Road Safety Cameras) (in Swedish) website http://www.trafikverket.se/Privat/Resan-och-trafiken/Trafiksakerhetskameror/2015-07-22. Swedish Transport Administration: Road Safety Made in Sweden, Order no 10097 2nd Edition, http://online4.ineko.se/online/download.aspx?id=43885 2013. Jörgen Larsson, Susanne Gustafsson: Vad är en effektiv trafikövervakning? En litteraturstudie, (in Swedish) VTI notat 42-2005, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute 2005.