The approach stems from the belief that every road death or serious injury is preventable and is built upon two basic facts about people:

1. People make mistakes and will make mistakes when on the roads

2. People are vulnerable to being killed or seriously injured if they are involved in a crash.

The Safe System recognises these facts and seeks to design them out of the equation.

Put simply, this means that all elements of the road system - vehicles, infrastructure, speed limits, road users, and post-crash care - work together as one to minimise the chance of a crash, or, if a crash does take place, to prevent death or serious injury from occurring.
Under the Safe System there are five themes for action.

• Safe Vehicles - reducing risk posed by vehicles.

• Safe Road Users – encouraging safe behaviours of people using our roads.

• Safe Speeds - encouraging speeds appropriate to the street.

• Safe Roads and Roadsides - designing an environment forgiving of mistakes.

• Post-Collision Response - learning from collisions and improving justice and care for victims.

 
Partners will use targets and safety performance indicators (SPIs) to measure success and report progress.