One of my core values is making a difference. It’s what drives me, and it’s what led me to take on TRL’s suicide prevention work with National Highways. Suicide is a deeply sensitive and complex issue, but it’s also one where thoughtful design, strong leadership, and cross-sector collaboration can save lives. As we prepare for Highways UK 2025, I want to share reflections on the journey, the progress made, and the opportunities ahead to embed suicide prevention into the future of road safety.
Suicides: hidden and overlooked
Each year, around 50 people die by suicide on the Strategic Road Network (SRN). These incidents account for approximately 20% of all deaths on the network. The impact is profound, not only for families and communities, but also for road users, emergency responders, and witnesses.
Suicide is often seen as being outside the scope of road safety because it involves intentional behaviour. But many of the behaviours we already address, like speeding or using a mobile phone while driving, are also intentional. The difference is that those actions aren’t typically associated with a desire to die. Because suicide is intentional, it can be harder to view it as a preventable safety issue. But it absolutely is preventable. If we can design roads to reduce risk, we can also design them to reduce the opportunity for suicide.
We’ve made huge progress in reducing deaths and serious injuries on roads in the UK. Suicides account for a significant proportion of all fatalities, and if we’re serious about maintaining that progress, and ultimately achieving zero harm, suicide prevention must be a key focus. That starts with visibility, and that means formally recording suicides in Stats19, the UK’s official road traffic collision dataset. Without data, we can’t understand the problem. And without understanding, we can’t solve it.
National Highways’ role in leading change
TRL has been helping National Highways to define their role in suicide prevention. While broader societal efforts are outside the remit of National Highways, they are uniquely positioned to lead within the UK road industry. They set standards in many areas for UK road authorities. They have scale, data, a dedicated team and a policy budget. This puts them in a perfect position to share learnings, set expectations, and shape industry practice.
One of the most promising approaches to preventing suicide is restricting access to means. One obvious and evidenced example of this is increasing the height of parapets on bridges to make it much more difficult for people to fall from height. This approach is evidenced to be up to 90% effective. It’s a powerful example of how adapting infrastructure can save lives. That’s why parapets are an area of focus in National Highways’ suicide prevention programme. However, these interventions are complex, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Retrofitting is difficult, there are complications with issues like wind loading which mean increasing the height of parapets is not always feasible at all locations. That’s why National Highways is also moving toward a proactive risk management approach, considering suicide risk during the design phase of new schemes.
Another key part of this is having people with the capabilities and knowledge to drive change. National Highways are working to support their leaders, people, partners and road users to feel empowered to do what they can to prevent suicides on the network. It’s about enabling everyone, from designers to traffic officers, to understand their role in suicide prevention on the SRN, feel confident in their capability, and feel supported by leadership. The ultimate ambition is to embed suicide prevention into everyday practice, not treat it as an add-on or niche concern. Suicide prevention is everyone’s business.
