Almost 30 years ago, a revolutionary idea changed how Europe regarded road collisions.

It has probably saved countless lives, but it has yet to be fully accepted by politicians.

The BBC story records how this triggered a revolution in our thinking and how Claes Tingvall’s ideas were put into action.

Light bulb moments

1995, a serious crash occurred on the E4 motorway near Stockholm, Sweden.

Five young people were travelling in a hatchback car when the vehicle went into a roll near the exit ramp for the Ikea store.

The car smashed into a concrete structure supporting a streetlight by the side of the road, and all five passengers were killed.

It’s an all too common story, but this was the turning point in road safety for Sweden and now the world.

Different approaches

Tingvall had just become the head of road safety for the Swedish Road Administration.

He was very well qualified for the role but quite unlike any of his predecessors.

Instead of rising through the ranks of road transport engineers and bureaucrats, Tingvall had a medical background and a doctorate in the epidemiology of injuries.

While the road safety world was focused on technological measures such as seatbelts, car seats for children and airbags, Tingvall took a slightly different approach.

Belt up

While these measures softened the impact of car crashes and the impact of passengers within a vehicle, less attention was given to the world outside the vehicle.

Tingvall knew that this approach didn’t go far enough.

“The car can’t solve everything, because it doesn’t work like that,” he says. “You bottom out the safety net of the vehicle.”

He saw that injuries were a result of combining a speeding mass with the built environment and many other variables.

These included road conditions, the driver’s behaviour, the vehicle’s safety features, and the road and the furniture alongside it.

Who’s fault

This “systems” approach wasn’t new to road safety experts.

However, it differed from the way officials looked at road collisions, which was primarily through a criminal justice lens.

After the crash near Stockholm, he spoke to the regional director of the transport authority and asked the official what he planned to do following the incident.

The reply stated the authority would swiftly replace the concrete lamppost.

But Tingvall demanded that all such supports be removed.

They were clearly a hazardous feature to have right next to a road.

Work began to improve Sweden’s “clear zones” next to roads despite disquiet among officials.

Wasn’t changing the road layout tantamount to admitting liability for the crash?

Looking ahead

From a very early point in the development of the motor car, the industry decided to focus lawmakers’ attention away from cars’ inherent dangerousness and toward the actions of the person behind the wheel.

After all, as the car manufacturer lobby put it: “Cars don’t kill people, people do.”

With individual road users carrying the moral and legal weight of road crashes, officials at transport authorities were free to prioritise other things.

When Tingvall joined the Swedish road authority in 1995, he was expected to balance road safety with other variables.

These included cost, driver preference and the impact of changing traffic flows on the economy.

The real moment of change came during a visit from Ines Uusmann, the minister for infrastructure and Tingvall’s political boss.

She asked, simply: “How many deaths should we have as our long-term target in Sweden?”

Tingvall replied: “Zero.”

Vision Zero was born.

Read the fascinating BBC interview here.