Road Safety Concept in the Republic of Belarus

Abstract

The general trend of accident rate reduction, which has been observed in the Republic of Belarus since 2010, reversed in 2017–2018. Remaining within the framework of the country’s traditional engineering activities related to road maintenance is unlikely to significantly improve road safety. A transition to qualitatively new practices and mechanisms for ensuring road safety is required. In order to implement this transition, a second Road Safety Concept has been developed. The Concept is based on the Safe System approach, which offers the implementation of measures in four areas: improving road infrastructure safety, increasing vehicle safety, ensuring safe speeds, and training safe road users. The main threat to the implementation of the Safe System approach in the Republic of Belarus is the fixation of stakeholders on their narrow corporate interests and the unwillingness to take into account nation-wide road safety. The Concept mainly focuses on the “Safe Road Infrastructure” component. A transition to sustainable road safety and the introduction of a Forgiving Road approach are included in the Concept. The introduction of assessment of infrastructure projects impact on traffic safety, traffic safety audit and inspections, road traffic risk assessment, and elimination of accident hotspots are also specified. The introduction of road safety audit is considered an important milestone in the transition to the Forgiving Road approach. The development of Intelligent Transportation Systems is included for the same purpose. Despite the fact that the Concept sets reasonably realistic goals, there are certain concerns about the feasibility of their achievement. This is due to significant institutional problems, such as the lack of a single coordinating body and the complexity of interdepartmental interaction.