Zeitschrift für Ergonomie
Offener Zugang

Abstrakt

Quickest Way to Reduce Road Deaths: To Implement Traffic Rules

Tianze Xu*, Binghua Wu

In this study, firstly we compared the 13 interventions presented by UN to cut traffic accident in each country and found that high-income countries do not necessarily have Low Road Death Rate (LRDR) and low-income countries can achieve LRDR, and that being strict of any one of the 13 interventions does not guarantee LRDR while being lax of any one of the 13 interventions does not necessarily mean High Road Death Rate (HRDR). This means none of the interventions is a decisive factor in influencing a country’s road death rate. Furthermore, we compared the difference in traffic management between what is common in LRDR countries and what is common in HRDR countries. Through analysis, we argue that decisive factors are traffic rules and its enforcement. Specifically, we drew the following conclusions for safe traffic: 1) Government being strict in issuing driver’s license, 2) traffic rules must be scientific and in detail and well obeyed by human, and 3) traffic management precautions must be seamlessly consistent with infrastructure and environment and traffic condition. The key value of our study and conclusions is road death rate of a HRDR country can reach the lowest level in a reasonably short time by enacting traffic rules and enforcement of them, without need for upgrading its level in economy, infrastructure and vehicles, which needs at least decades of time.