Safety or Efficiency? Strategies and Conflicting Interests in Belgian Road-Safety Policy, 1920–1940

After World War I, automobile ownership became a mass phenomenon in Belgium, as in most other industrialized countries. Unfortunately, road-casualty figures soon followed. By the mid-1930s, traffic accidents had become the main cause of accidental deaths. There was clearly a need for a renewed road-safety policy. Public authorities in Belgium, however, were suspiciously reluctant to take new measures. While there was a public outcry for more severe regulation of motorized traffic and several MPs backed bills to this effect, motoring associations lobbied against traffic-legislation reforms. In order to understand the Belgian government's hesitation, this article looks at the key strategies of the actors involved in the decision-making process concerning traffic policy. Such strategies included, among others: the creation of detailed traffic-accident statistics, revision of traffic legislation, and support for mass traffic-education campaigns. Eventually, public officials stepped in and created a new technocratic traffic regime in the 1930s, yet their prime concern was not road-user safety, but the efficiency of traffic streams.