Saving lives on Alberta's roads

The aim was to find the most effective ways to change driver habits and reduce collisions and, in the Minister’s words, to “reduce the unacceptable number of fatalities and injuries that occur every year in this province.” This report provides a summary of the current situation in relation to road safety in the province, the key ideas and suggestions made by stakeholders involved in consultations, [...] If we look at the number of fatalities and injuries in comparison to the number of kilometres driven, Alberta ranked 7th best among the provinces with a rate of 10 fatalities and 4th best for injuries at 682 injuries per billion kilometres.5 Since 1998, the number of reportable collisions has steadily increased and, while the number of people killed has gone down, the number of people injured has [...] A list of submissions and meetings with organizations is included in Appendix 1. To provide a framework for the consultations, people were asked to respond to the following key questions: 1. What are the major obstacles to improving the safety of Alberta’s roads? [...] Consistently we heard that the major obstacle is the lack of overall leadership and the absence of a consistent and concerted plan for addressing and improving road safety across the province. [...] The reasons include lack of general awareness and specific information on the scale of the problem, in the health, the social and economic costs of road traffic crashes, and on the interventions that can prevent crashes or reduce the harm they cause.