Road safety status during COVID-19 pandemic: exploring public and road safety expert’s opinions

The main objective of this study is to investigate the status of traffic safety and the public perception of traffic safety during the during COVID-19 pandemic. Three different data sets are used in this study: road crash and traffic violation data from Qatar, and two separate questionnaire surveys (from general public and road safety experts). Results showed that during COVID-19 period, the total number of crashes in Qatar significantly reduced during the pandemic compared with the previous 5 years. However, the rates of serious and fatal injuries significantly increased. Regarding the general public perceptions, more than 80% reported that roads became safer while driving behaviours improved during the pandemic. On the other hand, more than 50% of the experts disagreed that roads became safer, 55% disagreed that driving behaviours improved and 70% agreed that less attention from governments was directed toward road safety during the pandemic. The findings from this study could help policy makers to understand the road safety status during the pandemic to make appropriate adjustments in the traffic laws and regulations on a temporary basis. This could help in reducing crash-related injuries and as a result reduce pressure on health and other emergency services.Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. This publication was made possible by the Collaborative Grant [QUCG-CENG-21/22-2] from the Qatar University

Identification of road safety risk factors in Africa

The paper presents the results of the analysis of road safety data, collected within the research project "SaferAfrica - Innovating dialogue and problems appraisal for a safer Africa", aiming to support policy makers and stakeholders with evidence on critical risk factors, related actions and good practices drawn from high quality data and knowledge. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The overall objective is to identify key risk factors affecting road safety in African countries. More specifically, a data organisation and analysis system was developed for the data gathered in order to produce indicators and define critical areas and challenges per topic and region of Africa. The analysis of the data for identifying key risk factors was performed on 5 different topics and priority areas for road safety actions and interventions were highlighted