Oxford County looking for feedback on road-safety strategy

By Lee Griffi

Municipalities in Oxford County are looking for feedback on how to improve road safety.

The Road Safety Strategy survey is online now at Speak Up, Oxford! until Sept. 8. The survey invites Oxford residents and businesses to share their thoughts and experiences as the county builds a detailed plan to improve safety for all road users and reduce collisions, injuries and fatalities.

Residents can also mark areas of concern for driving, walking or cycling on an interactive map, or fill out an online feedback form to submit a comment or question.

“This is the first time we have done this,” said Frank Gross, the county’s senior manager of transportation. “We were directed by county council in 2025 to proceed with the development of a road-safety framework in collaboration with municipalities, police and paramedic services. A big part of it is to find out what the public’s main concerns are.”

Work to improve road safety begins this year with the development of a Road Safety Framework that will lay the groundwork for future planning. This will be followed by the development of a Road Safety Strategy in 2027 that will include detailed countermeasures and guidance to address road-safety concerns.

Gross said the survey includes an interactive map where the public is able to drop pins on locations of concern, but anything is on the table.

“We want to hear what the greatest concerns are; is it speeding, pedestrian safety, careless driving, the roads themselves and so on. The framework will be focused on Vision Zero principles.”

Vision Zero is an approach to road safety that aims to eliminate deaths and serious injuries by designing roads and transportation systems around the fact that people make mistakes and that those mistakes should not result in fatal or life-altering crashes. That distinction is often at the heart of Vision Zero; the goal isn't perfect drivers, it's a transportation system that is forgiving of human error.

“We realize humans make mistakes, so how do we design roads and intersections to mitigate poor decisions made by drivers. If a driver does make a mistake, we want the impact to be less severe, like in a roundabout, for instance, where drivers are forced to slow down. If they make an incorrect move, the result is a minor collision as opposed to a serious injury or even death.”

Short-term recommendations under a new road-safety strategy could include greater use of illumination at rural intersections, speed feedback signs, acoustical rumble strips and flashing beacons at stop control intersections. Longer-term actions would focus on roadway design and expanded use of data-driven transportation planning.

The idea of truck routes in Oxford County has been a hot topic for years as the amount of transport traffic continues to rise. Gross explained implementing one isn’t easy since it would involve a great deal of financial resources to ensure appropriate infrastructure.

“Every community would like to see trucks rerouted, but we have to look at what’s practical. The county has actually identified a good movement strategy, which is essentially identifying preferred truck routes. I think it’s more about restricting trucks in specified areas where you don’t want to see large trucks through residential areas or where vulnerable populations exist.”

Gross added once priority truck routes are identified, the next steps are to ensure the appropriate infrastructure is in place and then promote the routes.   

The development of Oxford County’s Road Safety Strategy was approved by county council in October 2025. As part of the strategy, the county adopted the Ontario Road Safety Audit (RSA) Guideline, which assesses existing road infrastructure and future transportation capital projects to identify safety hazards, assign risk ratings and recommend mitigation measures.

Public input and feedback will be sought throughout the process of developing the road-safety strategy. The survey is a first step in getting public feedback and takes only three to five minutes to complete. Visit www.oxfordcounty.ca/speakup to learn more and take the survey.

The county will use public feedback, the analysis of collision and other data, and staff comments to bring back a framework to the next county council in 2026.

“It will identify priority areas, next steps and where the county and area municipalities need to work together on improvements. From the county’s perspective, rural areas might be the priority areas to address.”     

In 2025, Oxford County council directed county staff to explore implementing a long-term Vision Zero Plan and adopting the Good Roads Rural Road Safety Strategy following requests from the Blandford-Blenheim, Zorra and East Zorra-Tavistock townships.

The Good Roads Rural Road Safety Strategy focuses on improving safety on rural roads, which have a disproportionately high number of collisions compared with urban roads, through advocacy for provincial funding and consistent road safety design standards.