New vision zero strategy to help eliminate fatalities on Leeds’ roads

Credit: Leeds City Council

Leeds City Council has announced that the Leeds Safe Roads Vision Zero 2040 Strategy has been launched to help eliminate road death and serious injury in the city. The new strategy has been developed by the Leeds Safe Roads Partnership and uses a ‘Safe System’ approach, which considers all factors that could help to prevent fatal and serious road crashes. 

Consisting of five pillars, the Safe System approach means that everyone who has anything to do with shaping the traffic environment is responsible for safety, as well as those who use the roads. 

Between 2017 and 2021, road crashes in Leeds killed 93 people and seriously injured another 1,562 (1,655 in total). Therefore, the strategy aims to make the city’s roads safer for active travel by eliminating road deaths and serious injuries by 2040.

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Councillor Helen Hayden, Executive Member for Infrastructure and Climate, said: “We have a bold ambition; that by 2040 no one will be killed or suffer serious injuries on our roads. We want Leeds to be a city where you don’t need a car to get around and where people feel safe to choose to walk, scoot, wheel and cycle for their health and for the environment. Vision Zero is our strategy to cut traffic risk so that no one is killed or seriously injured using the roads. The Connecting Leeds Transport Strategy changed our approach to addressing road danger and recognised that road danger prevents more people from choosing to walk and cycle to their destination.”

Alison Lowe OBE, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) in West Yorkshire, said: “We need to do something different and vision zero is the answer. Ambitious as it may sound, we are going to throw everything at this to make it work. Road safety is a priority issue for our communities, and it has been for a long time. People should not face death or injury of any kind on our roads and that is what we’re working towards. A partnership approach, embedded in Leeds and in every district in West Yorkshire, will help us achieve this.”