Federative Republic of Brazil National Road Safety Capacity Review

The Situation in Brazil

The absence of a national unified single detailed crash database, or single unified databases for each state is a profound impediment to effective Road Safety management, responsibility, accountability, monitoring and evaluation. This in turn limits monitoring, evaluation, and properly informed future investment decisions.

The crash database held by Police is, as with almost all such databases, focused on the behavioral contributors to crashes, and has little systematic information relevant to the other elements of safe systems. For example, the focus is on the cause of the crash not the causes of injuries, and to the extent that any road factors are identified these are considered as contributors to the crash occurring rather than contributors to the injury or lack of injury (e.g., a wire rope barrier struck by a vehicle rather than a tree). Brazil is not alone in having this problem, and indeed the legal and behavioral focus of police work renders such a focus axiomatic. Some countries have addressed this through detailed linkages of the crash data with road feature databases⁵⁷, and hospital databases which reveal associations between crashes, roadside furniture (barriers, poles, etc.) and injury outcomes.

Police crash data do not appear to be linked to health data and thus it is not possible to assess the health costs of crashes based on features of the crash (crash type: head on versus pedestrian, etc.; speed limit, vehicle type, etc.). A sound connection between crash and hospital data would also allow stronger assessment of crash costs overall and by type, location, speed limit, etc. allowing more precise evaluation of Road Safety programs and more precise selection of works for stronger benefits.

Improved crash data and their use for evaluation need to be supplemented by a focus on intermediate outcome data which tell a story about the problems, advantages, and impacts of programs, which otherwise remain invisible. Possible examples include: on road observations of seat belt wearing rates, helmet use, tracking of driver attitudes and beliefs, and travel speeds. In addition to monitoring of final and intermediate outcomes, systems need to be established to ensure that monitoring and evaluation are integral part of safety programs at all levels of government. Direct monitoring of the delivery of Road Safety programs does sometimes occur (levels of infringements, engineering changes to roads). Evaluation and monitoring should be planned and costed into programs from the start.

Social costs: Estimates of the socio-economic costs of road traffic crashes in Brazil were last undertaken in 2006, and were updated in 2015. This joint evaluation between IPEA and Federal Highway Police estimate the social cost of traffic accidents in BRL $40 billion per year. Despite methods available for the estimation of costs of road trauma in Brazil⁵⁸, there is a broad lack of appreciation of the real economic costs of road crashes and trauma. Socio-economic costs of road fatalities and injuries are not employed to present the business case for Road Safety investment, to prioritize works, or to seek greater funding priority for Road Safety. In the absence of these data, some road authorities sometimes employ weighted rates of injury and death to prioritize works. While this is not ideal, it is a reasonable approach in the absence of costing data, but such uses are rare and do not address the remaining uses of such data for business cases for Road Safety or the promotion of Road Safety as an economically viable investment.

4.8Research and Development and Knowledge Transfer

The value of research and development and knowledge transfer

The Situation in Brazil

In addition to the usual formal training processes for the relevant processions, knowledge transfer processes are undertaken, including training of Road Safety staff in statistics and crash data, and training of Police for crash data recording processes. More comprehensive training in Road Safety would be of value at federal, state and municipal levels.

With just one or two notable exceptions, the lack of Universities and academics working strongly on Road Safety at the national level in Brazil limits effective research and development, as well as provision of sound Road Safety training. There appears to be an inadequately small, community of research experts in Road Safety in Brazil. Road Safety managers interested in establishing collaborations with researchers struggle to find available interested researchers despite the useful research opportunities these collaborations offer. Human capacity must be improved in this area, and will be needed within the lead agency as well as for the continuing role of independent experts is also critical.

Knowledge of Road Safety programs, their effectiveness and management exists in too few staff in Government. Significant knowledge development and transfer is required for Road Safety management, monitoring, and selection of the most effective Road Safety strategies and projects, as well as for evaluation and refinement.

While there is good understanding among some public sector staff working on Road Safety, among most government officials there is a lack of understanding of Road Safety, and especially of safe systems. There is an unwarranted focus on behavior change rather than all the elements of the road transport system, as emphasized by the safe system approach. Ability to deliver Road Safety improvements is made more difficult by the lack of appreciation of, and application of, safe systems principles.