Introduction

Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2020 – Go safe on Scotland’s roads. It’s everyone’s responsibility (the Framework) was published in 2009. It set out a collaborative approach and the vision for road safety in Scotland, the main priorities and issues. It included five Scotland-specific targets to 2020 associated with milestones to 2015. It initially contained 96 commitments to be delivered by 2020. The progress towards delivery of the Framework’s commitments, including road safety achievements and road safety partners activities, as well as the 2020 targets were reported on an annual basis through the publication on Transport Scotland website of the Framework’s Annual Reports.

The Framework’s Strategic Partnership Board (SPB) undertook an evidence-based mid-term Review of the Framework in 2015/16. The review, which adopted a participatory approach, assessed the progress made since 2010 and identified three Priority Focus Areas around Speed, Age and Vulnerable Road Users.

The review established that a fundamental re-working of the Framework was not required.  Instead, there should be an on-going focus and activity on all the existing priorities and commitments through a continued emphasis across the five Framework Pillars of Education, Engineering, Enforcement, Encouragement and Evaluation. 

The review further enhanced Framework performance by setting outcomes and indicators specific to the Priority Focus Areas, with outcomes deemed sufficiently challenging to be in-step with the Framework’s ambitious casualty reduction targets, but still attainable by the delivery partners.

The Framework ended 31 December 2020.

This report is the evaluation of the decade-long Framework using the final official road casualty 2020 statistics for Scotland published in Reported Road Casualty Scotland 2020 in October 2021. It was informed by a number of initiatives led by Transport Scotland, which included engaging with Road Safety partners through workshops and questionnaires as well as through the Framework’s governance. The purpose of these initiatives was to gather information on the current situation in respect of road safety in Scotland. It also allowed Scottish Government/Transport Scotland and stakeholders to collectively critically assess the last ten years and identify how the Road Safety Framework to 2030 can better serve Scotland and address issues with a targeted approach to reduce casualties over the next ten years. Responses received in relation to the public consultation on the draft Road Safety Framework to 2030 that was held between 8 September and 1 December 2020, which included questions about the successes and failures of the previous framework, have also helped to inform this report.