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From the comments: "Sweden has 264 road deaths for 9.5 million people. Britain has 1730 for 62 million people. The deaths rates, at 28 per million people, are

From the comments: "Sweden has 264 road deaths for 9.5 million people. Britain has 1730 for 62 million people. The deaths rates, at 28 per million people, are virtually identical in both countries and way below every other European country. Britain though, has impossibly crowded narrow roads laid down hundreds of years ago, full of bends and hazards large urban conurbations with lots of people, including pedestrians, using the roads at the same time, and almost no new roads designed for safety or anything else. Yet Britain has no more per capita road deaths than Sweden. Perhaps the Swedes have technical solutions in road planning, design and all sorts of legal restrictions on drivers to aid road safety. Perhaps the British are just more considerate and more aware, that, as their roads are much more hazardous, they have to take a lot more care when driving." Very surprising that Britain has done that well.

Retric 12y ago
Britain discurages driving, sweden makes roads safer. There both going to reduce fatalities, but britain ed:(approach) can't really make much progress without removing cars from the road where Sweden can make things safer and still use cars.
- arethuza 12y ago
  "britain can't really make much progress" Yes it can - the roads here (as in most countries) are constantly being upgraded to improve capacity and safety. e.g. The dualling of the A9 (the main route to the North of Scotland) will hopefully make a huge difference to this notoriously dangerous road: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/a9-dualling-perth-inverness http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/a9-dualling-pert... [NB At the moment the A9 switches from single lanes in either direction to dual carriageway and back again numerous times - people get mixed up as to whether they are on a single or dual carriageway with unfortunate results]. I'm sure there are examples throughout the UK of this kind of thing happening.
  - Retric 12y ago
    Granted, I did not mean to say Britain is not using the full set of tool to reduce road fatalities (Road Design, Signage, Licensing, Enforcement, etc.). Just that discouraging driving especially around London significantly reduces their fatalities, but it’s not really scalable.
sampo 12y ago
I would guess, narrow roads in medieval towns would lead to slow driving speeds, and with slow speeds accidents are less fatal. Perhaps you can still kill a pedestrian when driving at 30 km/h, but a collision with another car at such speed is probably not fatal.
- arethuza 12y ago
  I suspect you are overestimating the extend of "medieval towns". Even places, like here in Edinburgh, that do have a core of medieval buildings have surrounding areas built in later centuries that generally have much wider streets out to the suburbs that were probably mostly built in the last century and have "modern" roads.
- gsnedders 12y ago
  Most of the towns are built with roads wide enough for two wagons to past each other, and pedestrians around the wagons. All in all, not too different from smallish cars.
Symmetry 12y ago
Narrow roads are actually one of the best things you can do to increase road safety. People naturally want to slow down on narrow roads and speed up on broad ones.
corford 12y ago
Just came here to post that same comment (http://www.economist.com/comment/2312452#comment-2312452 http://www.economist.com/comment/2312452#comment-2312452). While it's surprising the Economist failed to mention this maybe the UK's and Sweden's approaches are actually not that different? We have lots of speed bumps, traffic calming techniques, cameras, average speed checks, high vis signing, smart roadside warning stuff, railings at many pedestrian crossings etc. Most modern cars you can buy now come with beeping alerts if you don't plug your belt in and our drink driving rules are tough and enforced. Also, depending on where in the UK you live, it's difficult to drive at a speed that could do any serious damage due to the horrendous congestion! Whenever I'm on the M6 I seem to spend most of the time stationary :/ Anecdotal Edit: I also think there's a difference in driving mentality/culture between British drivers and those from some other EU countries e.g. France. I lived there for 5 years and noticed that drivers there were much more willing to overtake on blind bends (which used to scare the shit out of me) and much less inclined to make way for other road users merging. Their attitude to driving seemed a lot more focused on their individual needs rather than the collective. My French girlfriend (who now lives with me here in the UK) agrees FWIW.
- ljf 12y ago
  And yet (anecdotally) when I was in France cycle the drivers were so much more polite to me. I saw bad driving in terms of lack of consideration of other drives, but when it came to cyclists they were generally extremely friendly, indicating and passing very wide and only when it was safe to do so. This was for both country and city cycling. In the UK most drivers seem to treat cyclists pretty poorly.
  - corford 12y ago
    That I would definitely agree with. France is much better for cyclists and motorbike riders.
VLM 12y ago
In metric deaths per kilometer Britain is about 15% higher than Sweden. Something that has to be considered is only weirdos live to drive, most people drive to live. This will be contentious much like work to live vs live to work. None the less, its quite mathematically possible to have a situation where fewer societal lifetimes are lost overall, yet more lives end in a car crash. Obviously re-implementing feudalism and never allowing serfs permission to leave their lords land would have very low car death rates, but the total amount of wasted lives would be enormously higher. Its quite possible that in terms of "lifetimes lost commuting per million people" that the USA is lower than Europe, what with our lack of public transit and seemingly everyone owning a car. For political reasons this statistic cannot be compiled because the result may not match predetermined journalistic goals.
kzrdude 12y ago
That's very interesting. I would suspect the incidence of driving while intoxicated is more common in Britain too (or is this not true)?
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  Drunk driving has become a huge social stigma in the UK over the past few decades. People will report drunk drivers, even their friends and relatives, as they see it is a social good. They still exist but the incidence of it has deceased rapidly. Scotland has just reduced the drink drive alcohol limit even further to the point where you effectively can't have any alcohol all day if you're driving. Given the mention of the Swedish rate between tests and positive results for breathalysers I imagine they have the same laws as the UK. The police in the UK can breathalyser anyone: a) who has committed a moving traffic offence b) involved in a road traffic collision c) who the officer suspects of having alcohol (any) in their system Most police forces require their officers to breath test if they have grounds, and while many police officers don't like dealing with traffic offences almost all of them will go out of their way to stop drink drivers. Given almost every driver commits a moving traffic offence every so often there is pretty much always grounds to test anyone (you don't have to actually prosecute for the offence, i.e. crossing a mini roundabout, just over the speed limit etc).
  - PJDK 12y ago
    There is very much a social stigma. I remember being quite shocked when I lived in Canada a few years ago, and people would tell stories that would end "I don't even remember driving home that night". That just wouldn't be acceptable back home (or at least in equivalent social circles). To get onto wild speculation and anecdote, I noticed that anti-drink drive adverts in the UK tend to focus on how horrific it would be to be responsible for killing someone, whereas in Canada they focused on what the penalties would be if you were caught.
JetSetWilly 12y ago
Britain drives on the left. Most people are right hand and right eye dominant, so driving on the left is inherently superior. This is why racing drivers use a gear stick on the left, for example. I simply attribute Britain's improbably good driving safety record - in spite of having a road infrastructure that is not any better than that on the continent - to driving on the left and not having people constantly take their dominant hand off the steering wheel and put their dominant eye at a disadvantage.

Retric 12y ago

Britain discurages driving, sweden makes roads safer. There both going to reduce fatalities, but britain ed:(approach) can't really make much progress without removing cars from the road where Sweden can make things safer and still use cars.

arethuza 12y ago
"britain can't really make much progress" Yes it can - the roads here (as in most countries) are constantly being upgraded to improve capacity and safety. e.g. The dualling of the A9 (the main route to the North of Scotland) will hopefully make a huge difference to this notoriously dangerous road: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/a9-dualling-perth-inverness http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/a9-dualling-pert... [NB At the moment the A9 switches from single lanes in either direction to dual carriageway and back again numerous times - people get mixed up as to whether they are on a single or dual carriageway with unfortunate results]. I'm sure there are examples throughout the UK of this kind of thing happening.
- Retric 12y ago
  Granted, I did not mean to say Britain is not using the full set of tool to reduce road fatalities (Road Design, Signage, Licensing, Enforcement, etc.). Just that discouraging driving especially around London significantly reduces their fatalities, but it’s not really scalable.

sampo 12y ago

I would guess, narrow roads in medieval towns would lead to slow driving speeds, and with slow speeds accidents are less fatal. Perhaps you can still kill a pedestrian when driving at 30 km/h, but a collision with another car at such speed is probably not fatal.

arethuza 12y ago
I suspect you are overestimating the extend of "medieval towns". Even places, like here in Edinburgh, that do have a core of medieval buildings have surrounding areas built in later centuries that generally have much wider streets out to the suburbs that were probably mostly built in the last century and have "modern" roads.
gsnedders 12y ago
Most of the towns are built with roads wide enough for two wagons to past each other, and pedestrians around the wagons. All in all, not too different from smallish cars.

Symmetry 12y ago

Narrow roads are actually one of the best things you can do to increase road safety. People naturally want to slow down on narrow roads and speed up on broad ones.

corford 12y ago

Just came here to post that same comment (http://www.economist.com/comment/2312452#comment-2312452 http://www.economist.com/comment/2312452#comment-2312452). While it's surprising the Economist failed to mention this maybe the UK's and Sweden's approaches are actually not that different? We have lots of speed bumps, traffic calming techniques, cameras, average speed checks, high vis signing, smart roadside warning stuff, railings at many pedestrian crossings etc. Most modern cars you can buy now come with beeping alerts if you don't plug your belt in and our drink driving rules are tough and enforced. Also, depending on where in the UK you live, it's difficult to drive at a speed that could do any serious damage due to the horrendous congestion! Whenever I'm on the M6 I seem to spend most of the time stationary :/ Anecdotal Edit: I also think there's a difference in driving mentality/culture between British drivers and those from some other EU countries e.g. France. I lived there for 5 years and noticed that drivers there were much more willing to overtake on blind bends (which used to scare the shit out of me) and much less inclined to make way for other road users merging. Their attitude to driving seemed a lot more focused on their individual needs rather than the collective. My French girlfriend (who now lives with me here in the UK) agrees FWIW.

ljf 12y ago
And yet (anecdotally) when I was in France cycle the drivers were so much more polite to me. I saw bad driving in terms of lack of consideration of other drives, but when it came to cyclists they were generally extremely friendly, indicating and passing very wide and only when it was safe to do so. This was for both country and city cycling. In the UK most drivers seem to treat cyclists pretty poorly.
- corford 12y ago
  That I would definitely agree with. France is much better for cyclists and motorbike riders.

VLM 12y ago

In metric deaths per kilometer Britain is about 15% higher than Sweden. Something that has to be considered is only weirdos live to drive, most people drive to live. This will be contentious much like work to live vs live to work. None the less, its quite mathematically possible to have a situation where fewer societal lifetimes are lost overall, yet more lives end in a car crash. Obviously re-implementing feudalism and never allowing serfs permission to leave their lords land would have very low car death rates, but the total amount of wasted lives would be enormously higher. Its quite possible that in terms of "lifetimes lost commuting per million people" that the USA is lower than Europe, what with our lack of public transit and seemingly everyone owning a car. For political reasons this statistic cannot be compiled because the result may not match predetermined journalistic goals.

kzrdude 12y ago

That's very interesting. I would suspect the incidence of driving while intoxicated is more common in Britain too (or is this not true)?

cmdkeen 12y ago
Drunk driving has become a huge social stigma in the UK over the past few decades. People will report drunk drivers, even their friends and relatives, as they see it is a social good. They still exist but the incidence of it has deceased rapidly. Scotland has just reduced the drink drive alcohol limit even further to the point where you effectively can't have any alcohol all day if you're driving. Given the mention of the Swedish rate between tests and positive results for breathalysers I imagine they have the same laws as the UK. The police in the UK can breathalyser anyone: a) who has committed a moving traffic offence b) involved in a road traffic collision c) who the officer suspects of having alcohol (any) in their system Most police forces require their officers to breath test if they have grounds, and while many police officers don't like dealing with traffic offences almost all of them will go out of their way to stop drink drivers. Given almost every driver commits a moving traffic offence every so often there is pretty much always grounds to test anyone (you don't have to actually prosecute for the offence, i.e. crossing a mini roundabout, just over the speed limit etc).
- PJDK 12y ago
  There is very much a social stigma. I remember being quite shocked when I lived in Canada a few years ago, and people would tell stories that would end "I don't even remember driving home that night". That just wouldn't be acceptable back home (or at least in equivalent social circles). To get onto wild speculation and anecdote, I noticed that anti-drink drive adverts in the UK tend to focus on how horrific it would be to be responsible for killing someone, whereas in Canada they focused on what the penalties would be if you were caught.

JetSetWilly 12y ago

Britain drives on the left. Most people are right hand and right eye dominant, so driving on the left is inherently superior. This is why racing drivers use a gear stick on the left, for example. I simply attribute Britain's improbably good driving safety record - in spite of having a road infrastructure that is not any better than that on the continent - to driving on the left and not having people constantly take their dominant hand off the steering wheel and put their dominant eye at a disadvantage.