Road Safety
Readings
Road Crash Costs
Road Crash Costs in Australia. Report 102. Bureau of Transport & Regional Economics. 2000.5
During the 1990s, around 2000 people per year died and over 20 000 per year sustained serious injuries on Australian roads. When the human cost is considered in combination with associated property damage and the costs of the infrastructure required to deal with road crashes, it is clear that society bears a huge overall cost.
Road Crashes and How to Avoid Them
Safety for Dummies. The Age. 2003.8.31
We, as a community, should say, “Death and serious injury on the roads is totally unacceptable”, according to Ian Johnston, director of Monash University Accident Research Centre. “Road use is the only activity in which we're willing to accept wholesale collateral damage.” Is 400 deaths a year the price we're willing to pay for getting to use the roads whenever, wherever and, to a degree, however we want?
Roughly half of all road deaths and serious injuries in metropolitan Melbourne occur in areas with speed limits of 60km/h or less. About 40 per cent of fatalities result from vehicles running off the road in rural areas. People die on the roads in all sorts of ways, but no matter what the cause, we have a fix: get the speed down, says Ian.
Older drivers (drivers over 30) are a concern. They may be more cautious than younger drivers, but changes to their reaction time, sight, bone density and so on means they're much more at risk, particularly in side-impact crashes. (Airbags are much better at preventing death in frontal collisions than side collisions.)
Plotting your route so you only turn left when you drive to work each day dramatically reduces the risk of a side-impact collision. So does driving with your parking lights on, so people can see you.
Vehicle-size disparity is a problem. A big car hitting a small car is worse than a big car hitting a big car. And the rapid increase in the number of trucks coming onto our roads - three times the rate of cars - means more car-truck collisions.
Large cars protect their passengers better than small cars, in crashes with four-wheel drives. Large (standard) cars cause less injury than four-wheel drives, in crashes with small cars.
Sweden's “Vision Zero” approach to road safety removes conflict points from the road system. Intersections are replaced by flyovers. Roads are divided to avoid collisions. Feeder roads to freeways have stop-go lights that allow only two cars at a time to approach the on ramp. LED readouts indicate travelling times and traffic conditions ahead, to keep drivers informed and thus less frustrated. Barriers are designed to guide a straying car gently back onto the road rather than crush it on impact. Strands of high-tension metal rope strung between collapsible poles, instead of galvanised steel barriers, reduce a car's impact rather than stop it dead.
But applying such measures to all Australian roads would be too expensive - too many kilometres of road, not enough taxpaying drivers. Other solutions are needed to “arrive alive”.
In the TAC SafeCar, the speed warning indicator works by means of an onboard computer that's in contact via global positioning satellite with the VicRoads mainframe. If you're three kilometres or more above the speed limit it begins to beep at you; if you don't reduce your speed within seconds, it starts to push the accelerator pedal back.
The following-distance indicator was less useful. If you drive with two seconds' stopping distance from the car in front, other drivers often cut in.
Road Safety versus Speed
Speed and the risk of crash involvement. Jack McLean, Craig Kloeden and Robert Anderson. Road Accident Research Unit. University of Adelaide
The risk of involvement in a casualty crash doubled with each 5 km/h increase in speed above 60 km/h. By comparing these risks with those associated with alcohol in a study also conducted by the Road Accident Research Unit in Adelaide it was found that each 5 km/h increase in travelling speed above 60 km/h increases the risk of a casualty crash by roughly the same amount as each increase of 0.05 above a zero blood alcohol concentration.
Road Safety Road Improvements - What Works
The Black Spot Program 1996-2002: An Evaluation of the First Three Years. Report 104. Bureau of Transport & Regional Economics. 2001.7
In the capital cities roundabouts and new traffic lights with no-turn arrows, medians, non-skid surfaces, traffic islands on approaches and indented right and left hand turns improved safety significantly.
But sealing road shoulders, edge lines, pedestrian facilities, and signs had no statistically significant effect on road safety. Attempts to improve lighting in the capital cities appear to have had a counterproductive effect.
In regional areas roundabouts, signs and new traffic lights with turn arrows improved safety significantly.
Medians, shoulder sealing, edge lines, and improved lighting increased safety moderately.
Traffic islands on approach, indented right and left turn lanes, non-skid surfaces, and pedestrian facilities had no statistically significant effect on road safety.
Road Safety and Fuel Economy
The relationship between fuel economy and safety outcomes. N. Haworth and M. Symmons. Monash University Accident Research Centre. 2001
Reduced speeding, lower speed limits and smoother driving style improve fuel economy and other environmental outcomes in addition to improving safety. Community attitude surveys suggest that there will be greater support for measures that aim to improve fuel economy than for those measures that attempt to reduce vehicle travel because fuel cost savings flow directly to the vehicle owner.
Reductions in travel speeds will result in crash savings in all scenarios. The reductions may be greatest in urban areas because of the significant representation of unprotected road users and because vehicles are better at protecting their occupants at urban speed levels. In urban areas, some fuel consumption and emissions reductions will follow from lower travel speeds but the bulk of the benefit will be to road safety. For open road travel, the crash savings associated with lower speeds are likely to be significant. The fuel consumption savings are likely to be greater than at urban speed levels.
Smoother driving has greater potential for reducing fuel consumption and emissions in urban areas than in open road travel. At the level of the individual vehicle, smoother driving can lead to greater reductions in fuel consumption than lower travel speeds in urban areas. The resulting reduction in emissions of air pollutants is expected to be greater than the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Pedestrian Injury Reduction Measures
Injury Reduction Measures in Areas Hazardous to Pedestrians, Stage 2: Countermeasure Evaluation. J.A. Oxley, K. Diamantopoulou & B. F. Corben. Monash University Accident Research Centre. 2001
Vehicle-pedestrian crashes in high activity/commercial centres are a long-standing problem. Small reductions in vehicle speed can lead to large reductions in road trauma for pedestrians in environments where there is high pedestrian activity.
Forgiving Roadsides
Forgiving Roadsides - A Way Forward. Peter Waugh
According to Sweden's Vision Zero, enshrined in road-safety legislation in 1997, society must take all steps to prevent people being killed or seriously injured on the roads.
Road designers and planners can take this approach by making the road system forgiving of user errors. Roads should be designed not just for the general road user, but also for road users who are high risk takers, have poor skills, are tired or affected by alcohol.
More safety devices should be provided for all cars, eg devices that guarantee seat belts are worn, drivers are sober and alert, and maximum speeds are limited.
A pedestrian, who is vulnerable, requires vehicle speeds to be below 20kmh to prevent death or serious injury. If the speeds cannot be kept to this level then vehicles and pedestrians should be separated physically.
Electricity and phone lines should be placed underground. Utility poles on road reserves are often large, close to the roadway, and mostly unprotected from errant motorists. Ironically, if these poles are damaged they are heavily reinforced thus presenting a higher risk to road users. To provide frangible poles is a common compromise solution. These poles, however, are not frangible for motorcyclists.
Other problems include undivided roads, insufficient median widths, trees and other natural hazards unprotected within the recovery zones, open drains, buildings, culvert end walls.
A travel speed of 40 km/h on a rural road would help motorists avoid being killed or seriously injured if they come off the road and hit a tree. (Note it is travel speed that is important here not the speed limit.)
But reducing travel speeds on rural highways to 40km/h would cause goods transport industry costs to rise significantly, and in a large state like WA would potentially cause greater increased social costs. This means a compromise solution such as some form of safety barrier would need to be installed. Since safety barrier is a hazard in itself, its design would need to take account of the road travel speed so that any impacts would not lead to death or serious injury.
I urge all organisations responsible for managing our road transport system including politicians to adopt the vision zero objective in all their planning and design and put peoples safety as the absolute priority in these processes. It will take courage to take on the "value for money" syndrome which controls much of our infrastructure decision making and state that the elimination of death and serious injuries on our transport systems is the ultimate value in our society.
2005.1.9