Streetfilms: Talking Traffic Safety at the Home of Vision Zero

Clarence Eckerson shot this great interview with Mary Beth Kelly of Families for Safe Streets and Claes Tingvall, director of traffic safety for the Swedish Transport Administration.

On Queen Street in Stockholm, a car-free plaza once “choked” with vehicle traffic, and standing within sight of the parliament building where Vision Zero took shape in the 1990s, Tingvall and Kelly discuss street safety policy for the 21st century.

“It’s about time the victims of everything we did wrong get a voice,” says Tingvall. “We want safe mobility for the elderly, for children, for anyone in the community.”

Tingvall says Vision Zero in Sweden involves “moving responsibility upwards” — holding fleet owners, like taxi companies, accountable for street safety, and not just individual drivers. “Safety becomes part of the market, rather than enforcement and punishment and other things — sure this is important — but in the end it’s going to be the leadership who really pick up all those norms first.”

With the advent of Vision Zero, says Tingvall, came the realization that mobility and safety are not mutually exclusive. “We as people today, I think we are not willing to sacrifice one thing for another benefit. Or that some should sacrifice so that someone else is getting a benefit. That time is over.”