Language and Change: An Inter-Organisational Study of the Zero Vision in the Road Safety Campaign

Abstract

The vision for the road safety work in Norway is to strive for zero fatalities and zero serious injuries. The policy is referred to as “the zero vision.” The Swedish National Roads Administration first introduced this in 1997. It was adapted to Norway by the Public Roads Administration (the PRA)1 in 1999 and passed by Parliament as part of the National Transport Plan in February 2001. Even if the zero vision was not passed before 2001, I count 1999 as the year when it began to make its mark on the Norwegian road safety work. The zero vision focuses on the ethical necessity of preventing fatalities and serious injuries in road traffic. It maintains a scientific approach to road safety, seeing the road users, the vehicle and the infrastructure in relation to each other. A third tenet of the zero vision is that the system designers and the road users have a shared responsibility for road safety. The thesis studies the impact of the zero vision on road safety in Norway during the period 1999-2004. Impact does not primarily refer to factual changes, but to how informants from the key road safety organisations see changes after the introduction of the zero vision.