The recent improvement of road safety in France: a lining up with European trend ?

The number of killed or injured persons on road has dramatically decreased in France since the end 2002. After many years of quasi stagnation, the number of accidents suddenly fell of almost 25% in October, November and December 2002. The trend was the same during the whole year 2003. So, according to the last data at our disposal, the number of accidents in November and December 2003 was about 40% below the results of November and December 2001. This impressive evolution is directly related to a new deal of public policy and speed enforcement. Nevertheless, the number of killed people remains at a rather high level in France (almost 6000 in 2003), in comparison with other countries like Great Britain. So, a first point a view could be to explain the new trend in France as a progressive lining up with the North-European countries. France was late in the field of road safety (like in many other fields!) and the present evolution is just a making up!But are we sure that such a European trend exists? Even if it seems easy to compare the results of road safety in France and Great-Britain, two countries with the same population and the same GDP per capita, such a comparison is not so obvious. And the task is more difficult if we try to compare with countries of different sizes like Sweden or Germany. And even if we could find a common trend, what is the goal to reach? Shall we consider, like in Sweden, that the final objective is zero killed people on road? And if it is, how can we explain the fact that in Sweden, like in Great-Britain, the number of killed people on road is no more declining since the end of the 90'?According to all these questions, the paper will try to reach three objectives.1) First, by the way of data analysis, we will seek the long run relationship between road traffic and number of accidents in some particular countries (France, Germany, Great-Britain, Sweden, Italy...). Our goal is to enlighten the "learning curve" of road users. Since the beginning of the 70', in all these countries, the number of killed people is declining even if traffic is growing. So it is necessary to find the trend of road safety improvement. Such a trend could be able to explain a large part of the improvement of road safety. But we have also to take into account the deviations between trend and observed results. The same phenomenon as what we observed today in France, a quick improvement of road safety, occurred, several years ago, in Germany or Italy. So, we need some more detailed explanations.2) Second, we will logically try to explain the differences, in terms of number of killed people per unit of traffic, observed between the countries under review. We will particularly tackle the issue of density. At the end of the 90s, according to the asymptotic trend of killed people on road, at once in Sweden, France and Great-Britain, the density seemed to be the good way to explain the differences (Cf J.Orselli). But even if density is an important factor, the new trend in France shows that it is possible to obtain important progress on all the parts of the road network, even there where the density is low. Thus, we must take into account not only the external factors of road safety (i.e. density of trafic, density of population, kind of road etc...) but also the behaviour of cars and truck drivers, especially regarding speed limitations.3) Third, as a first attempt to follow the changes in individual behaviours, we will underline the link between the number of killed people on road and the "value of life" used in public cost benefit analysis. It is very interesting to observe a certain correlation between these two time series. This relation is particularly interesting in France. At the beginning of 2000, the French government decided to double the official value of life. The concomitance of that decision with the new deal in speed enforcement could be an illustration of a changes of individual, an then collective preferences. It could be the most surprising result of that paper. Road safety improvement is not only the fruit of a combination of technical changes (safety belt, airbags etc..), it is possible to find a direct link between economic calculation and individual behaviour of drivers.