Future directions

Road Safety Vision 2001 initiatives have sparked improvements in Canada’s road safety performance. However, Canada continues to face stiff challenges from other world leaders in traffic safety as their level of safety continues to improve even more rapidly than Canada’s.

Enhanced awareness, cooperation and commitment by the Canadian road safety community and greater acceptance of new or existing road user, vehicle or road network initiatives by the motoring public are key if Canada is eventually to attain its goal of having the world’s safest roads.

The year 2001 is rapidly approaching. The safety improvements realized since inception of Vision 2001 suggest that Canada may not be successful in achieving its goal by 2001. Canada is not alone in this regard. In the past, several European countries have established extremely ambitious goals and not achieved them within their originally specified time frame. They were more successful, however, with subsequent targeting efforts. Canadian road safety stakeholders are now developing post-2001 targets to ensure that road safety improvements continue to move Canada towards having the world’s safest roads.