Community Road Safety – Organisational and Methodological Challenges

This paper summarises the main points to emerge from a review of community road safety in Australia and New Zealand, with emphasis on issues relating to evaluation and priorities. The basis of the review was an extensive program of visits to road safety practitioners working in communities and managers of community road safety programs in road safety authorities. Among the main issues to emerge the recognition of community road safety as part of good practice, the value of strategic plans at the community level, integration of community road safety with other aspects of local government activity, wider communication of the possibilities and benefits of community road safety, more costeffective use of local media, and the range of problems which can currently be tackled via community programs. Process evaluation is straightforward, but outcome evaluation presents some intriguing challenges due to the small number of crashes occurring in any single community.