Understanding and implementing safe system approach for roads and roadsides

New Zealand formally adopted the Safe System Approach in March 2010 with the Safer Journeys Road Safety Strategy to 2020. Since then we have been attempting to better understand the implications of this and how to turn strategy into action in respect to roads and roadsides activities in particular. This paper outlines our leanings to date through international advice, reviewing of relative research, modelling casualty outcomes of various safety programmes and countermeasures, development of the High Risk Rural Roads Guide (HRRRG) and High Risk Intersection Guide (HRIG), and the use of tools such as KiwiRAP1, KAT and SafetyNET to inform road safety investments to create a more forgiving state highway road network, increasingly free of death and serious injury.