Vision Zero strategy to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on county’s roads is approved

A package of initiatives aimed at eliminating deaths and serious injuries on Oxfordshire’s roads by 2050 has been approved.

Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet today approved the strategy and action plan entitled Oxfordshire – Safe Roads through Vision Zero to 2030.

The document builds on the council’s adoption of Vision Zero in 2022, a concept that originated in Sweden in the 1990s as a road safety approach. The ambition is to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Oxfordshire’s roads to zero by 2050, with targets of a 25 per cent reduction by 2026 and 50 per cent by 2030.

It also follows a public consultation on the proposed strategy, which received more than 1,300 responses.

Paul Fermer, Oxfordshire County Council’s Director of Highways and Operations, said: “The case for Vision Zero is clear. Between 2017 and 2021, a total of 128 people were killed on Oxfordshire roads, and a further 1,130 were seriously injured. This has a devastating impact on individuals and families, and on our communities in general.

“Vision Zero starts with a simple premise, that no human being should be killed or seriously injured as the result of a road collision, whatever mode of transport they are using.

“Although there has been a long-term downward trend in reported road collisions and injuries in Oxfordshire, recent figures show they are now on the increase. We need to take a zero tolerance attitude to having anyone else killed or seriously injured on our roads.”

Each year, on Oxfordshire’s roads, there are:

• an estimated 30,000 collisions of all types;
• approximately 1,250 reported injury collisions; 
• approximately 30 deaths, 245 serious injuries and nearly 1,250 slight injuries reported.

The Vision Zero programme aims to ensure the highway network is safely designed, implemented and maintained with Vision Zero at the heart of all decision making. The programme has a £4 million capital budget for measures delivered by 2026, plus £250,000 of revenue funding.

Vision Zero focuses on a whole safe system approach, rooted in the belief that every death reflects a human failure in the system. This ensures that the programme is not just a technical solution but also encourages a behaviour change and cultural shift towards a more human-based approach to road safety.

This safe system approach encompasses five aspects; safe roads and roadsides; safe vehicles; safe speeds, such as the council’s 20mph programme; safe road users; and the post collision response, from the initial onsite first aid through to the analysis and reviews of road safety incidents.

Better use of road safety collision data will be vital in achieving Vision Zero. The council will look at near miss data to understand the flow of traffic at junctions and review the causes of slight incidents before they become a serious or fatal collision, as well as analysing actual collisions.

The data will be used for identifying collision hot spots, prioritising maintenance at these sites and improving road safety infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. It will also be used to identify road users’ behaviours and other road safety factors that contribute to collision hot spots. Enforcement, education or publicity activity can then be carried out to help reduce the risks.

Mr Fermer added: “We do not underestimate the challenges of implementing Vision Zero. It is a challenge that requires political and social commitment, including technical expertise across other councils and Thames Valley Police, and financial investment.”

Since Vision Zero was adopted – prompted by the deaths of two female cyclists in Oxford in the space of a few weeks in early 2022 – work has been carried out at The Plain roundabout in the city aimed at making it safer for vulnerable road users, including cyclists.

Work is also planned at many other sites around the county to tackle problems such as improving road safety at dangerous junctions, cycle safety, turning conflicts and to create safer routes to school.

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