Canada's Road Safety Targets to 2010

Executive Summary

Canada's inaugural national road safety vision -- "to have the safest roads in the world," and plan, Road Safety Vision 2001, were adopted by the Council of Ministers of Transportation and Highway Safety in 1996.

Initiatives undertaken in support of the vision (1996-2001) have helped progress the plan's strategic objectives: heighten awareness of road safety issues among the general public, foster cooperation and collaboration among road safety agencies, provide more focused enforcement and improve data quality and collection practices.

Canada's level of road safety during 1998, as measured by road users killed per registered motor vehicle, improved by almost 9% since the Vision was adopted in 1996. During the same three-year period, the actual number of road users killed and seriously injured decreased by 5% and 8%, respectively, over comparable 1996 figures.

Although Canada's fatality rate per 10,000 motor vehicles registered decreased from 1.79 in 1996 to 1.63 during 1998, its international ranking among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries decreased to 9th from 8th during 1996 and 1997 because some other countries achieved even more impressive gains during the same period.

In October 2000, the Council of Ministers for Transportation and Highway Safety approved a longer term successor plan, called Road Safety Vision 2010, to carry forward the work of Canada's inaugural national road safety plan.

Road Safety Vision 2010 will retain the Vision and its strategic objectives, and also include an overall national target and sub-targets (to be monitored annually and revised in 2006, if necessary).

The targets approved as part of Road Safety Vision 2010 are intended to provide road safety stakeholders with broad-based benchmark data of key road safety indicators, against which intervention efforts can be measured.

The national target calls for a 30% decrease in the average number of road users killed and seriously injured during the 2008-2010 period over comparable 1996-2001 figures.

The sub-targets include:

• minimum seat belt rates of 95% and proper use of child restraints by all motor vehicle occupants; (National Occupant Restraint Program 2010);
• a 40% decrease in the number of unbelted fatally or seriously injured occupants (National Occupant Restraint Program 2010);
• a 40% decrease in the percent of road users fatally or seriously injured in crashes involving a drinking driver (Strategy to Reduce Impaired Driving (2010);
• a 20% reduction in the number of road users killed or seriously injured in speed and intersection related crashes;
• a 20% decrease in the percent of drivers who commit three high-risk driving infractions (two if they are alcohol-related) within a two-year time frame;
• a 20% decrease in the number of young drivers/riders (those aged 16-19 years) killed or seriously injured in crashes;
• a 20% decrease in the number of road users killed or seriously injured in crashes involving commercial carriers;
• a 30% decrease in the number of vulnerable road users (pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists) killed or seriously injured, and;
• a 40% decrease in the number of road users fatally or seriously injured on rural roadways.

In addition to the adoption of quantitative targets, the successor plan also recommends the adoption of graduated licensing schemes in all jurisdictions; the use of innovative community policing protocols;  public education campaigns to promote safe cycling; and enhancements to crash and exposure data capture, transfer and linkage.

Achievement of these targets would reduce Canada's road fatality total to fewer than 2,100 by 2010.

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You may download the full report Canada's Road Safety Targets to 2010, TP 13736 E, in Portable Document Format (PDF) (371Kb).

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