Motor vehicle accident primary prevention
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Vishnu Vardhan Serla M.B.B.S. [2]
Primary Prevention
A large body of knowledge has been amassed on how to prevent car crashes, and reduce the severity of those that do occur.
United Nations Response
Owing to the global and massive scale of the issue, with predictions that by 2020 road traffic deaths and injuries will exceed HIV/AIDS as a burden of death and disability,[1] the United Nations and its subsidiary bodies have passed resolutions and held conferences on the issue. The first United Nations General Assembly resolution and debate was in 2003.[2] The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims was declared in 2005. In 2009 the first high level ministerial conference on road safety was held in Moscow.
The World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations Organization, in its Global Status Report on Road Safety 2009, states that over 90% of the world’s fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries, which have only 48% of the world’s registered vehicles, and predicts that road traffic injuries will rise to become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030.[3]
Vehicle Design and Maintenance
- Seatbelts
Research has shown that, across all collision types, it is less likely that seat belts were worn in collisions involving death or serious injury, rather than light injury; wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of death by about two thirds.[4] Seat belt use is controversial, with notable critics such as Professor John Adams suggesting that their use may lead to a net increase in road casualties due to a phenomenon known as risk compensation.[5]
- Maintenance
A well-designed and well-maintained vehicle, with good brakes, tires and well-adjusted suspension will be more controllable in an emergency and thus be better equipped to avoid collisions. Some mandatory vehicle inspection schemes include tests for some aspects of roadworthiness, such as the UK's MOT test or German TÜV conformance inspection.
The design of vehicles has also evolved to improve protection after collision, both for vehicle occupants and for those outside of the vehicle. Much of this work was led by automotive industry competition and technological innovation, leading to measures such as Saab's safety cage and reinforced roof pillars of 1946, Ford´s 1956 Lifeguard safety package, and Saab and Volvo's introduction of standard fit seatbelts in 1959. Other initiatives were accelerated as a reaction to consumer pressure, after publications such as Ralph Nader's 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed accused motor manufacturers of indifference towards safety.
In the early 1970s British Leyland started an intensive program of vehicle safety research, producing a number of prototype experimental safety vehicles demonstrating various innovations for occupant and pedestrian protection such as: air bags, anti-lock brakes, impact-absorbing side-panels, front and rear head restraints, run-flat tyres, smooth and deformable front-ends, impact-absorbing bumpers, and retractable headlamps.[6] Design has also been influenced by government legislation, such as the Euro NCAP impact test.
Common features designed to improve safety include: thicker pillars, safety glass, interiors with no sharp edges, stronger bodies, other active or passive safety features, and smooth exteriors to reduce the consequences of an impact with pedestrians.
The UK Department for Transport publish road casualty statistics for each type of collision and vehicle through its Road Casualties Great Britain report.[7] These statistics show a ten to one ratio of in-vehicle fatalities between types of car. In most cars, occupants have a 2–8% chance of death in a two-car collision.
- Center of Gravity
Some crash types tend to have more serious consequences, rollovers have become more common in recent years, perhaps due to increased popularity of taller SUVs, people carriers, and minivans, which have a higher center of gravity than standard passenger cars. Rollovers can be fatal, especially if the occupants are ejected because they were not wearing seat belts (83% of ejections during rollovers were fatal when the driver did not wear a seat belt, compared to 25% when they did).[4] After a new design of Mercedes Benz notoriously failed a 'moose test' (sudden swerving to avoid an obstacle), some manufacturers enhance suspension using stability control linked to an anti-lock braking system to reduce the likelihood of rollover. After retrofitting these systems to its models in 1999–2000, Mercedes saw its models involved in fewer crashes.[8]
Now about 40% of new US vehicles, mainly the SUVs, vans and pickup trucks that are more susceptible to rollover, are being produced with a lower center of gravity and enhanced suspension with stability control linked to its anti-lock braking system to reduce the risk of rollover and meet US federal requirements that mandate anti-rollover technology by September 2011.[9]
- Motorcycles
Motorcyclists have little protection other than their clothing; this difference is reflected in the casualty statistics, where they are more than twice as likely to suffer severely after a collision. In 2005 there were 198,735 road crashes with 271,017 reported casualties on roads in Great Britain. This included 3,201 deaths (1.1%) and 28,954 serious injuries (10.7%) overall. Of these casualties 178,302 (66%) were car users and 24,824 (9%) were motorcyclists, of whom 569 were killed (2.3%) and 5,939 seriously injured (24%).[10]
References
- ↑ Template:UN document
- ↑ Template:UN document
- ↑ "Road Traffic Deaths Index 2009 Country Rankings". Retrieved 1010-02-02. Check date values in:
|accessdate=(help) - ↑ 4.0 4.1 Broughton & Walter (2007). Trends in Fatal Car Accidents: Analyses of data. Project Report PPR172. Transport Research Laboratory. Unknown parameter
|month=ignored (help) - ↑ David Bjerklie (2006-11-30). "The Hidden Danger of Seat Belts". Time Inc. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
- ↑ "Safety First: the SSV/SRV cars". AROnline. Keith Adams.
- ↑ "Annual transport accidents and casualties". UK Department for Transport. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
- ↑ Fahrunfalle: Dank ESP verunglucken Mercedes-Personenwagen seltener (in German), Mercedes Benz, archived from the original (Graph of accident share) on 2008-02-16, retrieved 2007-12-28,
Road accidents are rare with ESP Mercedes passenger cars
- ↑ U.S. to Require Anti-Rollover Technology on New Cars by 2012, Insurance Journal, 2006-09-15, retrieved 2007-12-28
- ↑ Road Casualties in Great Britain, Main Results (Transport Statistics Bulletin ed.). Office of National Statistics. 2005. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
