Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 53

6.1.4.      While the program is broadly based, it can be seen that conventional traffic management actions (the highlighted actions in the box above) form an important part of a comprehensive approach.  It is beyond the scope of the present Paper to deal with all the aspects of a comprehensive road safety program and the remainder of the Chapter deals with the "traffic management" aspects of road safety.

6.2         Role of traffic management in road safety

6.2.1.       The role of traffic management in urban traffic safety may be considered under the following categories:

a)  Accident data reporting and analysis;

b)  Accident prevention including promotion of "safe" traffic management designs (such as appropriate standards, speed limits and speed controls, recognition of vulnerable system users in scheme design etc;

c)  Accident reduction by traffic management improvements at problem sites; and

d)  Enforcement of traffic regulations comprises two broad areas of action.

6.2.2.      In general, the majority of the actions are the responsibility of the "traffic agency" (see Chapter 4) but the traffic police have two vital roles to play in the traffic safety area; the traffic police are responsible for (i) the collection of accident data at the scenes of accidents and (ii) the enforcement of traffic regulations on which safe traffic operations depend.  In many developing countries there is a need for greatly enhanced expertise within the traffic police, including in the road safety area (Chapter 5).  As with all other aspects of traffic management, close liaison must be maintained between the "traffic management agency" and the traffic police.

6.3         Accident data reporting

6.3.1.      It is a truism that accident prevention policies and programs should be based on sound data.  The collection and reporting of data at accident scenes is a function of the traffic police and not of the “traffic management agency”.  The role of the “traffic management agency” is to retrieve accident data from the traffic police and to analyse those data to form the basis for local (“blackspot”) or route or area wide traffic management actions.

6.3.2.      While it is invariably the case that personal injury accidents should always be reported to the traffic police, in developing cities, the “Safety Review” notes that “official databases (of accidents) are incomplete, due to under-reporting, and the quality of the data recorded also varies according to the priority given to accurate reporting by the police.”  Issues affecting under reporting and data quality include:

a)  lack of police training in completing comprehensive accident reports to include all relevant site and accident event data;

b)  imprecise data particularly accident location data;