The place of safety research in transportation research

The place of traffic accidents in the overall public health picture is discussed, and it is noted that traffic safety occupies the intersection of transportation and public health. It is therefore important that the traffic safety community should have important roots in these disciplines. However, the institutional connection between traffic safety and public health is feeble. In transportation research, the safety component hardly exists. The reasons for this are discussed. It is believed that the safety payoffs from the installation phase of the road system have been nearly exhausted. For further progress in traffic safety, it is necessary to go beyond traffic engineering to transportation planning. An obvious procedure for incorporatig safety into transportation analysis is to use the common denominator of cost: safety should be treated as a benefit, and accidents as a cost. Good location of facilities should be considered to be a contribution to traffic safety. Research on public health issues within the transportation context should take two basic directions: an initiative in accident epidemiology; and research into the factoring of public health issues into the transportation and decision-making process.