Can injury prevention efforts, like zero harm, go too far?
So asks a paper focused on Vision Zero approaches in road safety.
This paper developed a statistical model and tested it to see what the impacts would be for society if a comprehensive vision zero program was implemented in order to eliminate road fatalities.
(Note: this post isn’t a critical poke at zero, nor evidence for or against. It’s just a theoretical modelling paper that I found interesting).
Their model evaluated several relationships between vision zero interventions, income per capita and general mortality in Norway.
Based on their models, implementing a best practice vision zero program that was able to reduce annual road fatalities from 300 to 90 would, contrarily, result in a *greater* number of annual deaths in society.
That is, meeting the above road traffic fatality goal reduction (300 to 90 road deaths), would cost society so much that it would result in an additional 1,145 deaths per annum across society.
This is because preventing road accidents is “so expensive to realise that there is so much less resources available to control other causes of death [in society, and therefore] general mortality increases”.
They argue that “the possibility cannot be ruled out that a massive effort to eliminate traffic deaths would be counterproductive in terms of overall mortality”.
And that this possibility “must be regarded as a moral dilemma by advocates of Vision Zero, who have invoked the ethical principle that ‘one must always do everything in one’s power to prevent death or serious injury’ to justify the vision”.
Whereas some zero proponents argue that the criticisms largely stem from a misunderstanding of zero (being more a journey rather than a fixed and literal target), some critics responded by questioning the use of a non-achievable goal. But that’s a post for another time.
Author: Elvik, R. (1999). Can injury prevention efforts go too far?: Reflections on some possible implications of Vision Zero for road accident fatalities. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 31(3), 265-286.
Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0001-4575(98)00079-7
SafetyInsights.org 