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Sweden features in many discussions about road safety. It’s held up as the gold standard, partly because it has reduced the number of road deaths, but mostly because it created the revolutionary ‘‘Vision Zero’’ approach in 1997.

Adopted by many other countries (including Australia), most American states and the United Nations, it was said to turn the traditional approach to road safety on its head.

Simply put, it puts people first and is founded on the principle that ‘‘it can never be ethically acceptable that people are killed or seriously injured when moving within the road transport system’’.

Vision Zero does not mean ‘‘zero crashes’’. Rather, it is a concept that zero deaths and serious injuries are an acceptable product of mobility.

In developing its new strategy, the New Zealand Government is investigating adopting a Vision Zero approach.

Ministry manager of mobility and safety Brent Johnston says the strategy will probably include ‘‘measurable interim metrics’’ against which progress can be measured.

‘‘Whether they’re hard targets, we haven’t worked through that process yet. But we want to have some measurable things to hold ourselves to account to, so we’re able to say if we’re on track.

‘‘If we just focus on deaths alone I think we miss the big picture in terms of serious injuries. The focal point . . . is [to] reduce this incredible amount of trauma, of which deaths are a smaller percentage.

‘‘We will have clear and measurable outcomes, including interim measures, to hold decision makers to account for the progress against those interim measures.’’

Lars Ekman, a safety expert at Sweden’s Transport Administration, gives talks around the world on the design, implementation and evaluation of Vision Zero. Ask him if targets are important and the phone line to Kristianstad goes momentarily silent.

‘‘It’s utterly important,’’ he then says. ‘‘You need to have a target and you need to follow it up. If we have a long-term vision the only way to reach that is by having a