Road safety as an important area for research and action programmes has received a great deal
of scientific attention in recent years. Progress has been made on several different fronts but in
one area there would appear to be a serious lack of interest or, at the very least, a paucity of
published information and informed debate. This area concerns the degree to which our
thinking and hence our solutions are locked into a particular view of technology and society and
thereby condemned to produce incremental improvements but no radical alteration in the
magnitude or structure of the problem itself. In the case of road safety it can be argued that
solutions which build on the acceptance of lfie motor car as a major and immutable technology
will reinforce that position and generate a primary paradox: solutions designed to reduce a
major negative effect of motorised transport contribute to the perpetuation of the circumstances
which lead to road traffic accidents. The lack of policy suggestions outside of this
“predominant technology” framework leads to great confusion in road traffic accident research.
There is confusion about objectives, especially when these relate to the straightforward
reduction of accident occurrences but conflict with resource constraints or with the interests of
car users themselves who in many different ways have the power to nullify policies which
appear to reduce the advantages or convenience of the privately owned motor car. Problems of
conflict between interest groups and the scientific “urge” to provide objective, technical
explanations for complex problems are sources of confusion in road traffic accident research
and a proper understanding of the nature of the problem itself.