Cars In The Future : How the Vehicle can Prevent Accidents and Injuries
Return to Cars In The FutureA much used statistic in Road Safety in that driver error is a factor in 95% of road accidents, whether by failing to notice a hazard, not reacting in time, or simply adopting a dangerous behaviour. A vehicle can have an influence in many of these situations, whether by informing a driver, assisting a driver, or by ultimately removing the driver’s ability to behave in an antisocial or dangerous manner by taking over some of the control.
In order to understand how vehicles can assist and influence the driver to prevent accidents, it is important to comprehend the events leading up to an accident. One way of doing this is by modelling the sequence of events that relate to the occurrence and outcomes in a crash.
It would have been equally as relevant to structure the paper under topics of road accident causation, rather than technologies, as the best way to maximise the effectiveness of new technology may be to look at the contributory factors that lead to an accident and then used evidence based decisions to choose the technology which could potentially mitigate the largest number.
Traditionally, the effects that the ‘three Es’ (education, engineering and enforcement) have on crashes have been broken up into three phases – Pre Crash, Crash and Post Crash. This is most commonly displayed in a Haddon Matrix. However, as vehicle engineering has become more sophisticated, a more sophisticated model is needed to address the influence of technology.
This is an area that several car manufacturers have looked into to see how and where vehicles can influence the risk of collision and injury. One such model of the chain of events is the Mercedes-Benz Integrated Safety Concept, which defines several phases:
Normal Driving
1. Warning Phase
2. Assistant Phase
3. Pre Crash Phase
Accident
4. Petty Collision
5. Minor Accident
6. Severe Accident
After the Accident
7. Post Crash/Rescue Phase
Each phase of the Integrated Safety Concept represents an escalation in the severity and consequences.
The injury prevention technology and passive safety has focussed on limiting the progression between phases 4, 5, and 6 of the integrated safety concept. However, as safety technology advances, the influence that a vehicle has before a crash occurs will increase, and the earlier a vehicle can intervene in a driver’s decision-making process.
This shows the wide range of ways that vehicles can prevent accidents before collisions occur, and provide drivers with information to reduce the number of accidents resulting from human error.
As the time that vehicle technology can help prevent a crash before a collision increases, it will find itself more and more working along side traditional road safety messages and a higher level of integration is important.
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