Little by little many European countries are silting up. The total number of vehicles with which the Europeans move about is increasing day by day and the end is far from being in sight. Where once the roads and streets were still to a certain extent empty at certain times of the day, one can now see more and more a continual stream of vehicles. With the increased traffic, the number of traffic accidents is still unacceptably high. The number of recorded fatal traffic accidents was thus in 1996 in the EU 45,000. The number of people injured as a result of traffic accidents who had to be treated in hospital amounted to 1.6 million. However recently research showed us an increase of factor 6 concerning this amount. Shocking figures, after all, on closer examination. The social-economic costs are approximately 150 Billion ECU every year. The European Commission and many European traffic safety organisations are initiating activities. The European Research Institutes of road safety are analysing and studying behaviour in traffic and are advising on road safety infrastructure. Besides a number of extremely professional institutions like the European Road Safety Federation, there are dozens of other organisations, small associations and foundations, which in some way concern themselves with traffic. The only thing, in spite of all these activities, which is painfully missing, is structure. Well-aimed and extremely necessary campaigns, for example in the field of alcohol and speed, have the result that road users behaviour is changed only temporarily. Not because he or she is persuaded of the necessity for another kind of behaviour on the road, but more because of the penalties threatened.This is the essence of the final limited outcome of all campaigns. They are aimed at a temporary change in behaviour, while hundreds of years of study of the human psyche have shown that behaviour can only be permanently changed if you try to bring about a change of mentality. One can however only bring about a change in mentality in children. Adults are too set in old habits and behaviour patterns. In their case only smooth off rough edges, but hardly change them. A good example of this position is education in the field of the environment. The enormous environmental awareness in the Netherlands is to be attributed to a good and continuous supply of information through the schools and the media. From a young age children are confronted with the need to take care of the environment. The result is that children are more conscious of the environment than their parents. If all this does not lead to better behaviour by a part of the road-users, the police have the task to enforce these road-users and in this way influencing road safety in a positive manner. By collecting the expertise of these professionals, who are working daily in the field of infrastructure, education and enforcement, the practical experience information can be used by other specialists in the field of road safety. Therefore we believe it was time to set up an international organisation, which is focused on an integrated approach to traffic safety and in which the best practical information in traffic safety will become available on a structural basis. This organisation has been initiated in the form of a foundation and is called Institute for Traffic Care (ITC). The organisation sets the goal of collecting existing and future traffic safety expertise by making use of (police) networks available to it, to achieve a structural development and implementation of traffic safety activities, with the end result of bringing about a positive behavioural influence of road traffic users. The organisation will achieve this by:
The surplus value of the organisation can be found in the fact that all the products, advice and other activities developed by the organisation, are supplied with an eminent international integrated (police)-expertise in the field of infrastructure, education and enforcement. The organisation aims at the following target groups:
Through the present world-wide police contacts, ITC is able to use this expertise for its activities. ITC has been set up as an enterprising foundation with a board of management, and an advisory council. The board members and members of the advisory council all have close relations with organisations in the field of traffic safety. The method of ITC is based on a strategic enterprise, as a knowledge-broker, between market and governments. ITC strives as project organisation to meet it's goals and has a small basic staff. By each project use will be made of existing organisations, or (international) expertise will be hired for the duration of the project and in addition makes use of it’s own expertise. In this way ITC can carry out its activities in a flexible manner with minimum basic costs.
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