The Scottish Government has revealed plans to eliminate road deaths in the country by 2050.
The new framework sets out a vision for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world by 2030.
It also sets a long term goal where no one is seriously injured or killed on the roads by 2050, with Transport Scotland figures showing there was an average of 166 such fatalities each year between 2015 and 2019.
Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said: “Deaths or serious injuries on our road network are not an inevitability.
READ MORE: Edinburgh 20mph speed limit cuts crashes by a third
“Our strong belief, shared by Scotland’s road safety partners, is that even one death on our roads is one too many.
“Our previous framework approach has been successful. I know this brings no comfort to those who have lost loved ones, but the latest figures show that casualties on Scotland’s roads are at the lowest levels since records began.
“We’ve seen a 35% increase in traffic over the past 25 years and a 66% decrease in road collisions across the same period.
“We need to build on what we’ve achieved and our new framework will do so through a sharper focus, improved evaluation, more specific targets and stronger connections between national and local levels.
“At the same time, it aims to support wider policy objectives, such as tackling the climate emergency by supporting a shift away from cars and towards walking, wheeling and cycling for shorter everyday journeys.
“Behavioural change remains key, particularly when it comes to tackling issues like speeding.
“In addition to wider speed enforcement through the new safety cameras sites I announced last year, I’m pleased this framework is launching with a new, nationwide, marketing campaign to tackle the issue of speeding on our roads.”
The framework sets out new strategic outcomes for road safety with a performance management system to monitor progress.
For the first time, specific targets are being created to focus attention by partners on priority areas.
Transport Scotland will also establish new forums to expand and grow the connections between national and local road safety across the country.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here