Planning has played the biggest part in reducing accidents. Roads in Sweden are
built to prioritise safety over speed or convenience. Low urban speed limits,
pedestrian zones and barriers that separate cars from bicycles and oncoming
traffic have helped. Building 1,500km (900 miles) of “2+1” roads—where each lane
of traffic takes turns to use a middle lane for overtaking—is reckoned to have
saved around 145 lives over the first decade of Vision Zero. And 12,600 safer
crossings, including pedestrian bridges and zebra stripes flanked by flashing
lights and protected with speed bumps, are estimated to have halved the number
of pedestrian deaths over the past five years. Strict policing has also helped:
less than 0.25% of drivers tested are over the alcohol limit. Road deaths of
children under seven have plummeted—in 2012 only one was killed, compared with
58 in 1970.
