The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) certainly has its work cut out. From autonomous cars to e-scooters, PACTS supports the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Transport Safety, advising and informing members of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords on transport safety.

We're promoting a wide range of issues, broadly under this Safe System banner

explains executive director – and CIHT Fellow – Dr David Davies.

You address safe vehicles, safe infrastructure, safe road users and then post-crash response. Safe speeds is a specific pillar itself, although that can sometimes be brought in with safe infrastructure and safe users. Then there's the management system: you have a target of casualty reduction, but you also monitor the safety of the system.

The approach means that instead of celebrating fewer hazards than last year, we focus more on monitoring critical safety factors. The approach is closer to what we see in rail and aviation.

There's no point just looking at the number of people killed or injured at the end of the year, reasons Davies. What they look at is what they call accident precursors – safety indicators such as signals passed at danger or derailments factors that could lead to serious consequences, but may not have done. But obviously they're still things you need to address.

The beauty of looking at safety critical factors is that it steers people towards doing the right things, he adds. For example, if we're monitoring the percentage of five-star Euro NCAP-rated vehicles in our fleet, then we know where we are and we'd like to get it higher. Instead of going around telling drivers to drive more carefully – which we've been doing for a long time with limited success – you focus on the things that, if they don't go well, then they result in death and serious injury. That performance management side of it is important.

Davies also warns against any complacency that might arise from the UK’s road safety record, when compared to other industrialised nations.

It's no good saying that Britain's got one of the best road safety records in the world. We're still killing 1,500, 1,700 people a year and seriously injuring another 25,000-30000. That's just not good enough. You wouldn't accept that level of death and injury in other services.

So what part can transport planners and engineers play directly in helping to drive down killed or seriously injured (KSI) figures? “Drivers principally drive according to the infrastructure and road conditions,” Davies suggests.

Placing 20mph speed limit signs doesn't immediately get them to slow down to 20. But if the road feels like a slow-speed road – with speed humps, narrow sections and parked cars – they’re much more likely to. The physical environment tends to influence drivers' speeds and, to some extent, their behaviour. It's a huge challenge to re-engineer our roads to make driving more civilised, etc, so clever psychological traffic calming is something that I'd like to see a lot more of.

Along with better provision for walking and cycling. That's absolutely part of the infrastructure now. There are really clever schemes that engineers have implemented over the last few years in London, Manchester and elsewhere: they’re imaginative and creative. More of that, too.

Dr David G Davies is just one of the speakers taking part in CIHT’s Technical Seminars in May. Want to know more?: https://www.ciht.org.uk/may-seminars/