Citizenship in Collision

Elvebakk, Beate · 2018 · Crossref

DOI: 10.23987/sts.65339

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Summary

This article examines the introduction of a new narrative framework for road safety in Norway following the 2004 expansion of the Norwegian Accident Investigation Board (AIBN) to include road traffic. The research addresses how this organizational shift altered the construction of risk and causality in road accidents, specifically analyzing the tension between traditional statistical approaches and the AIBN’s qualitative, individual-case investigations. The study is motivated by the need to understand how these new narratives interact with existing legal and administrative structures, particularly regarding the concept of liberal citizenship and individual agency. The methodology relies on a qualitative analysis of government reports, whitepapers, and published reports from the AIBN’s road traffic section. Additionally, the author conducted interviews with employees from the AIBN, the Norwegian Directorate of Public Roads (NPRA), and the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The paper contrasts the NPRA’s traditional reliance on aggregated accident statistics—which identify "risk objects" like young drivers or unsafe road stretches through macro-level data—with the AIBN’s approach of investigating individual accidents to uncover systemic flaws and organizational failures. The findings reveal a significant conflict between the two institutions. The AIBN’s reports construct detailed narratives of individual accidents, often attributing causes to systemic issues such as poor visibility or unclear right-of-way rules, thereby proposing specific safety recommendations. In contrast, the NPRA frequently resisted these conclusions, preferring to categorize accidents as the result of individual "human error" or inattention. This divergence highlights a clash between the AIBN’s system-oriented perspective, which seeks to intercept causal chains at various points, and the NPRA’s statistical logic, which relies on established risk categories to justify policy measures. The author argues that the AIBN’s narratives implicitly deconstruct the notion of the liberal citizen—an autonomous, independent agent responsible for their actions—by emphasizing the entangled relationships between drivers, infrastructure, and institutional responsibilities. The significance of the study lies in its demonstration that road safety narratives are politically charged and have practical consequences for intervention strategies. By challenging the liberal assumption of individual autonomy, the AIBN’s approach exposes the limitations of a system that relies on blaming individual drivers to maintain the appearance of a safe, orderly traffic system. The paper concludes that these competing narratives reflect deeper tensions in how society defines responsibility and agency, suggesting that the AIBN’s work has the potential to reshape road safety policies by shifting focus from individual blame to systemic improvement.

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• traffic safety culture