The road safety situation in the countries around the world looks very different depending on which country that is studied. Some countries such as the Netherlands, sweden and UK, have excellent history and record. The industrialised world has 60％ of the cars but only 15％ of the road traffic fatalities. Others are considerably less advanced and show high risks and large number of fatalities. The developing world has only 40％ of the cars but 85％ of the road traffic fatalities. The general ambition should be to reduce the total number of persons killed on the roads by increasing road safety especially in those countries with lower road safety and with negative road safety trends. One way of approaching a road safety strategy is to use what in industry is often called benchmarking. That means that good safety experiences are used as models for countries with lower safety level. There fore this presentation will focus on the more advanced countries from road safety point of view, using primarily Sweden as an example. Which are the road safety strategies the leading countries are planning to follow during the coming decade? Which are the visions, the targets,the priority problems and the specific measures these countries plan to implement? Could these ideas be transformed to other less developed countries in the world? The presentation starts with a historical review where the importance for society of an efficient transport is stressed. The road safety problems we are facing today can be traced back to the development of transport. The risks in the various modes of road transport are described and compared with other trans port risks using the European Union as an example. Three levels of problems are discussed-the first, second and third order problems. It is pointed out that the second (e. g. education, enforcement) and third order problems (e. g. management, vision and targets) are often overlooked. In most societies road safety problems create a considerable public health problem. Principles of countermeasures are discussed both in general terms and specifically concerning the human factors. Finally mistakes in previous road safety work are pointed out and proposals to avoid such mistakes in the future are made. rn