TRAFFIC ACCIDENT PREVENTION
Every day thousands of people are killed and injured on our roads. Men, women or children walking, biking or riding to school or work, playing in the streets or setting out on long trips, will never return home, leaving behind shattered families and communities. Millions of people each year will spend long weeks in hospital after severe crashes and many will never be able to live, work or play as they used to do. Current efforts to address road safety are minimal in comparison to this growing human suffering. Researches indicate that vehicle crash protection is a most effective strategy for reducing death and serious injury in road crashes. The concept of “crashworthiness” in vehicle design is now well understood and is incorporated into current car design in highly-motorized countries. If it were adopted globally, it would contribute substantially to increased road safety.Vehicle engineering for improved safety can be achieved by modifying a vehicle to help the driver avoid a crash, or in the event of a crash, protect both those inside and outside the car against injury. Frontal and side impact protection. The vast majority of car crashes in high-income countries are offset frontal crashes (where only one side of a vehicle’s front end hits the other vehicle or object). A recent priority for safety engineers working on frontal impact protection has been to improve the car structure so it can endure severe offset impacts with little or no intrusion of external objects. This allows space, in the event of a crash, for the seat-belts and air bags to slow down the occupants with the minimum risk of injury. Side impacts, while less frequent than frontal crashes, typically cause more severe injuries. In side impacts, it is difficult to prevent occupants on the side that is struck from coming into contact with the car’s interior. Attempts at greater protection thus rely on managing the problem of intrusion, and providing padding and side air bags. “Intelligent” vehicles New technologies are creating new opportunities for road safety as more intelligent systems are being developed for road vehicles. Vehicles are now starting to be equipped with technology that could improve road safety in terms of exposure, crash avoidance, injury reduction and automatic post-crash notification of collision. Examples are presented below of some of the most promising “intelligent” vehicle safety applications that are already “on the road” in some form. “Smart”, audible seat-belt reminders The fitting and use of seat-belts constitute the most important form of occupant restraint. Measures to increase seat-belt use, through legislation, information and enforcement and smart audible seat-belt reminders are central to improving in-car safety. Seat-belt reminders are intelligent visual and audible devices that detect whether seat-belts are in use in various seating positions and give out increasingly urgent warning signals until the belts are used. They do not lock the ignition function. Modern types of seat-belt reminders are different from the older versions that produced a chiming sound and a light for four to eight seconds, which proved ineffective in increasing seat-belt use.
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