Citation

Zini G. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 2005; 2005: 15p.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

It can be argued that road safety faces a severe problem: as the rate of road crashes per traveled kilometer decreases, the quantity of traveled kilometers increases and, therefore, the total quantity of road crashes tends to rise or, in the better of cases, to remain constant. In this context, if the decrease of the total quantity of victims of the automobile is desired, a serious effort to reduce the severity of road impacts should be made (without abandoning the intensification of road crash–prevention campaigns). And since impact speed is a factor that has one of the greatest influences in the consequences of traffic crashes, the following should be highlighted: (1) Vehicles allow drivers to travel at very high speeds and many of them prefer to do so, exceeding by far the legal limits. (2) Some people even argue that it is safer to circulate at high speeds because some advantages are enjoyed (e.g.: it takes less time to arrive to destination, so drivers are less exposed to traffic dangers). (3) Human beings have a serious fascination for speed. In Aldous Huxley’s words, speed seems to provide “the one genuinely modern pleasure”. To conclude, it does not seem to be possible for the circulation speeds to be reduced – on the contrary, they will probably be increased in most countries; therefore, it is highly useful to limit the circulation speeds to those allowed by law in each type of road. A general approach to both the aspects of severity decrease through speed circulation reduction, and to the ways of doing this by global positioning system (GPS) technology is proposed.