Vision Zero in Sweden: Streaming Through Problems, Politics, and Policies

Belin, Matts-Åke · 2022 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-76505-7_9

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Summary

This paper examines the political decision-making process that led to the adoption of Vision Zero as Sweden’s national road safety strategy in 1997 and its subsequent re-evaluation in 2004. Utilizing John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework, the author analyzes how problem, policy, and political streams converged to place road safety on the public agenda. The study highlights Vision Zero as a radical departure from traditional safety policies, shifting from a utilitarian approach that accepted casualties as the cost of mobility to a deontological ethic demanding zero fatalities or serious injuries. This new paradigm places ultimate responsibility for safety on system designers rather than individual road users, focusing on managing kinetic energy to protect human biological limits. The analysis traces the "problem stream" through historical trends in Swedish road safety. Following post-war motorization, fatalities peaked in the 1960s, prompting the creation of the Swedish Road Safety Agency in the 1970s, which successfully reduced deaths. However, the 1980s saw a resurgence in fatalities, leading to a loss of political confidence in the agency. The early 1990s brought a severe economic recession that temporarily lowered traffic volumes and fatalities, creating an optimistic context for policy change. Simultaneously, the "political stream" was shaped by the return of the Social Democrats to power in 1994. The new Minister of Communication, Ines Uusmann, prioritized road safety, providing the political will necessary for reform. In the "policy stream," the strategy evolved through leadership changes at the Swedish Road Administration. After the agency’s dissolution in 1992, initial strategies under Professor Kåre Rumar focused on changing individual attitudes and risk acceptance. However, the appointment of Claes Tingvall in 1994 introduced a biomechanical perspective, arguing that accidents are inevitable but serious injuries are not. Tingvall’s team developed the Vision Zero strategy, which emphasized safe system design over behavioral modification. The "policy window" opened in 1995 when Minister Uusmann found Tingvall’s proposal politically attractive. An intergovernmental task force was formed to develop concrete recommendations, leveraging stakeholder coordination to anchor the policy before its parliamentary adoption in 1997. The significance of this study lies in its demonstration of how a complex policy shift occurs through the coupling of distinct streams rather than rational, linear planning. It illustrates how Vision Zero succeeded by aligning a viable technical solution (safe system design) with a receptive political climate and a recognized problem (the limitations of behavioral approaches). The paper concludes that Vision Zero’s success in Sweden and its subsequent international spread stem from this specific convergence of organized anarchy, where policy entrepreneurs capitalized on a fleeting window of opportunity to implement a paradigm shift in public health and transport policy.

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• traffic safety culture