Sidsel Sandelien was hired by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration as the first full-time employee to devote full attention to traffic safety. Tonight, Sidsel talks about how traffic safety was first taken seriously in the 1970s, and what fruits it has borne.
Sidsel began with the location of the accidents on aerial photo, focusing on the fact that it was not just the road user who was "blamed" for the accidents. Speed measures and safer intersections were important. In 1995, the "Zero Vision" came from Sweden -the ambitious goal of zero traffic -killed. This provided new energy to the traffic safety work and was followed up in Norway from 1999. Many said it was impossible, but after over 50 years the results show that systematic traffic safety work is useful:
While in the 1970s it was common to lose over 100 children in road traffic accidents in 2019, no children died. In total, the number of traffic deaths has dropped from the top of 560 in 1970 to less than 100 today. Still not zero - but the vision still lives and sets the standard for safety thinking for everyone who plans and manages road traffic, and all of us traveling in it.
Sidsel Sandelien was one of Norway's first civil engineers in construction, educated from NTH (NTNU) in 1968. She has had various central jobs in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. as agency director for environment and technology in the Road Directorate, state road manager in Oslo and regional road manager for Eastern Norway from 2002 to 2012.
