Citizenship in Collision

Notions of Agency in Road Safety Work

Abstract

In 2004, the Norwegian Accident Investigation Board (AIBN), previously restricted to civil aviation, was expanded to include a new section for road traffic, which was to investigate individual road accidents. The overall ambition behind the new organisation was to reduce the number of fatalities in road traffic. This article explores the idea that the main task of the Accident Investigation Board’s section for road traffic was to construct a new kind of narrative about road accidents, which would in turn open up new possibilities for intervention. The article examines what characterizes the narratives they have constructed and how these narratives interact with conceptions of risk and causality. It also discusses how they fit into the existing structure of road safety work in Norway. It concludes that the Accident Investigation Board’s narratives are implicitly political, as they partly deconstruct the notion of liberal citizenship underlying the legal system, and that this deconstruction can potentially have far-reaching practical consequences.