Master Programme in Economic Demography Road through Geography: Is the Swedish Traffic Safety Policy Working Equally Regardless of the Region?

Vision Zero was introduced as an innovative traffic safety policy that has the eradication of mortality and severe injuries caused by traffic accidents as its final goal. The process of achieving that goal is through a set of measures, rules and regulations that change not only the way of thinking and acting of traffic members (and drivers, in particular), but also of car and road designers. Since Vision Zero was created as a nation-wide policy, then the question is whether it is working equally well for different regions in Sweden. In this case three regions are analyzed: North, Center and South. These regions differ in the amount of inhabitants, the ratio of urban and rural areas as well as the density of woodlands and wilderness areas. For the purpose of this analysis I make use of the data that is openly available but which has not yet been used to answer such specific research question. To examine the functioning of the policy and various causes of the traffic accident outcomes, I use fixed effect panel models along with OLS regressions. The results point out that males are severely injured in traffic due to excessive alcohol consumption, whereas women are killed as a result of high traffic congestion. This takes place in the South for males and in the South and Center for women