Education
Currently, the AfroSAFE Academy works on development of a curriculum for course in traffic safety fundamentals, with particular focus on Safe System perspective. In its full form, the curriculum is sufficient for a master-level university course. Its various parts, however, can be used for bachelor education, or as a complementary components in other course not entirely devoted to traffic safety (e.g. road engineering, public health, etc.).
The materials are currently under final revision and are being published as soon as it is complete.
All course materials are provided under Creative Commons license, free for any African university to use and integrate them integrating in own teaching.
How to use this curriculum?
The curriculum is made for teachers as the target audience (not students directly). See these materials as a starting point for developing your course (or a course module, or a single lecture) on traffic safety.
We chose this approach rather than providing fully prepared course because everyone’s teaching and presentation styles are unique. To deliver an effective lecture, you need to engage deeply with the material—using the recommended resources in each module—through reading, reflecting, and preparing beyond simply taking a set of slides made by someone else. We encourage you to adapt the contents to your own approach and teaching context, ensuring your own in-depth knowledge of the subject and a richer learning experience for your students.
Framing the challenge
1. Traffic safety—problem scope
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
2. Evolution of traffic safety theory and practice
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Baker, S. P., & Haddon, W. (1974). Reducing Injuries and Their Results: The Scientific Approach. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society, 52(4), 377–389.
- Hagenzieker, M. P., Commandeur, J. J. F., & Bijleveld, F. D. (2014). The history of road safety research: a quantitative approach. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 25, 150–162.
- Hakkert, S.A., & Gitelman, V. (2014). Thinking about the history of road safety research: Past achievements and future challenges. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 25, 137–149.
- Hakkert, S. (2021). The history of transportation and road safety research. ICTCT webinar, 4 June 2021.
- Loimer, H., & Guarnieri, M. (1996). Accidents and acts of God: a history of the terms. American Journal of Public Health, 86(1), 101–107.
- Nader, R. (1965). Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile. Grossman Publishers.
- Shinar, D. (2022). Moving from Crash Causation and Countermeasures to Road Safety Policy. ICTCT webinar, 25 February 2022.
- Smeed, R. J. (1949). Some Statistical Aspects of Road Safety Research. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 112(1
- Visser, E., Pijl, Y. J., Stolk, R. P., Neeleman, J., & Rosmalen, J. G. M. (2007). Accident proneness, does it exist? A review and meta-analysis. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 39(3), 556–564.
3. Safe System
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Elvik, R. (2023). What would a road safety policy fully consistent with safe system principles mean for road safety? Accident Analysis & Prevention, 193, 107336. (Opean Access)
- Hudson, P. (2007). Implementing a safety culture in a major multi-national. Safety Science, 45(6), 697–722.
- ITF. (2008). Towards zero. International Transport Forum.
- ITF. (2016). Zero road deaths and serious injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift to a Safe System. International Transport Forum.
- ITF. (2022). The Safe System approach in action. International Transport Forum.
- ITF. (2025). Road safety in action: The Safe System tool. International Transport Forum.
- Johansson, R. (2009). Vision Zero—implementing a policy for traffic safety. Safety Science, 47, 826–831.
- Stipdonk, H., Aarts, L., Campsall, D., Carnis, L., Feypell, V., Fosdick, T., Shelton, D., Small, M., & Vadeby, A. (2024). Maturity measurement in road traffic injury prevention. Traffic Safety Research, 5, e000045.
- Welle, B., Bray Sharpin, A., Adriazola-Steil, C., Job, S., Shotten, M., Bose, D., Bhatt, A., Alveano, S., Obelheiro, M., & Imamoglu, C. T. (2018). Sustainable and safe: a vision and guidance for zero road deaths. World Resource institute | Global Road Safety Facility.
4. How to measure traffic safety
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Nilsson, G. (2004). Traffic safety dimensions and the Power Model to describe the effect of speed on safety [Doctoral thesis, Lund University, Sweden].
- Elvik, R. (2008), ‘Dimensions of road safety problems and their measurement’, Accident Analysis & Prevention, 40 (3), 1200–1210.
- WHO. (2023). Global status report on road safety.
5. Traffic safety data
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Laureshyn, A., Agerholm, N., & Sucha, M. (Eds.). (2025). Traffic safety data: the way to better knowledge and better traffic safety. IET.
- Laureshyn, A., & Varhelyi, A. (2018). The Swedish Traffic Conflict Technique: observer's manual.
- Polders, E., & Brijs, T. (Eds.). (2018). How to analyse accident causation? A handbook with focus on vulnerable road users. Deliverable 6.3. Horizon 2020, InDeV project.
6. Why accidents happen?
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Elvik, R. (2024). Risk factors as causes of accidents: criterion of causality, logical structure of relationship to accidents and completeness of explanations. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 197, 107469.
- Elvik, R. (2007), ‘Operational criteria of causality for observational road safety evaluation studies’, Transportation Research Record, 2019 (1), 74–81.
- Elvik, R. (2006). The laws of accident causation. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 38(4), 742–747.
- Hauer, E. (2022). Crash causation and prevention. ICTCT webinar, 16 October 2020.
- Hauer, E. (2020). Crash causation and prevention. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 143, 105528.
- Leveson, N. (2023). An introduction to system safety engineering. The MIT Press. (Chapter 4 ‘Why accidents occur?’)
- Lie, A., & Tingvall, C. (2024). Are crash causation studies the best way to understand system failures—who can we blame? Accident Analysis & Prevention, 196, 107432.
- Shinar, D., & Hauer, E. (2024). Crash causation, countermeasures, and policy. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 107543.
7. Accident typology
8. Injury biomechanics
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Carroll, J., Gidion, F., Rizzi, M., & Lubbe, N. (2022). Do motorcyclist injuries depend on motorcycle and crash types? An analysis based on the German in-depth accident study. International Motorcycle Conference (IFZ), Cologne, Germany.
- Ding, C., Rizzi, M., Strandroth, J., Sander, U., & Lubbe, N. (2019). Motorcyclist injury risk as a function of real-life crash speed and other contributing factors. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 123, 374–386.
- Fredriksson, R., Rosén, E., & Kullgren, A. (2010). Priorities of pedestrian protection—A real-life study of severe injuries and car sources. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 42(6), 1672–1681.
- Nordin, M., & Frankel, V. H. (2021). Basic biomechanics of the musculoskeletal system (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
- Puthan, P., Lubbe, N., Shaikh, J., Sui, B., & Davidsson, J. (2021). Defining crash configurations for Powered Two-Wheelers: Comparing ISO 13232 to recent in-depth crash data from Germany, India and China. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 151, 105957.
- Schmitt, K.-U., Cronin, D. S., III, B. M., Callaghan, J. P., & Muser, M. H. (2025). Trauma biomechanics: an introduction to injury biomechanics (6th ed.). Springer.
- Yoganandan, N., Nahum, A. M., & Melvin, J. W. (Eds.). (2015). Accidental injury: biomechanics and prevention (3rd ed.). Springer.
Solutions and implementation areas
9. Traffic safety measures: principles
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Elvik, R. (2009). An exploratory analysis of models for estimating the combined effects of road safety measures. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 41(4), 876–880.
- Godthelp, H., & Ksentini, A. (2024). Specific road safety issues in low- and middle income countries (LMICs): an overview and some illustrative examples. Traffic Safety Research, 8, e000068.
- Goel, R., Tiwari, G., Varghese, M., Bhalla, K., Agrawal, G., Saini, G., Jha, A., John, D., Saran, A., White, H., & Mohan, D. (2024). Effectiveness of road safety interventions: An evidence and gap map. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 20(1), e1367.
- GRSP, & World Bank. (2021). Guide for road safety interventions: evidence of what works and what does not work.
- Hauer, E. (1993). Overview. In The Traffic Safety Toolbox: A Primer on Traffic Safety. Institute of Transportation Engineers.
- SUPREME. (2010). Best practices in road safety: Handbook for measures at the country level. European Union.
10. Where traffic safety knowledge comes from?
11. Traffic safety pillars: Management
12. Traffic safety pillars: Safe speeds
13. Traffic safety pillars: Safe road users
14. Traffic safety pillars: Safe vehicles
15. Traffic safety pillars: Safe infrastructure
16. Traffic safety pillars: Post-crash care
Perspectives
17. Traffic safety as part of sustainable development
18. Meeting preconditions of various groups
19. Economical aspects of traffic safety
20. Social aspects of traffic safety
Cross-sectional topics
21. Traffic safety in low- and middle-income countries
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
22. Active mobility
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
23. ITS and technology
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
24. Suicide in traffic
Teaching materials
Recommended literature
- Andersson, A.-L., & Svensson , K. (2023). Suicide in the Transport System. In K. Edvardsson Björnberg, S. O. Hansson, M.-Å. Belin, & C. Tingvall (Eds.), The Vision Zero Handbook: Theory, Technology and Management for a Zero Casualty Policy (pp. 1103–1115). Springer.
- Andersson, A.-L., & Sokolowski, M. (2022). Accident or suicide? Improvement in the classification of suicides among road traffic fatalities in Sweden by extended psychosocial investigations, during the years 2010–2019. Journal of safety research, 80, 39–45.
- WHO. (2019). Suicide in the world: global health estimates.
