vehicle design factors

SAFETY IN ROAD DESIGN

VEHICLE DESIGN FACTORS 

 Manufacturers of automobiles play a major significant role in minimizing death or severe injuries in case of traffic accidents. By initiating adequate focus on design and technological innovation with
the aim of increasing safety of lighter vehicles, death or grievous injuries due to traffic accidents can be minimized. A few technological innovations in this direction are:

• Seat-belts
• Passengers compartment integrity
• Electronic stability control
• Air bags
  

Crashes  resulting  in  injuries  and  deaths  are  caused  by 

• poor  driving,  
• unsafe  roads,  
• unsafe  vehicles.  
• Driver mistakes  have  many  causes,  
• drowsiness,  
• inexperience,   
• aggressiveness,   
• alcohol,   
• distractions.
  

“Microsleep” events at the wheel cause a significant number of  all  serious  crashes.
Young  male  drivers  are  especially dangerous. 

Faults in road design such as

• Narrow, unlighted and poorly signed roads
• Missing shoulders
• Increasing traffic as rural areas become sub-urban and traffic that exceeds design expetations.
• Exceeding speed on rural roads is encouraged by limited traffic enforcement
• Another cause for increased fatality rates in rural areas is reduced availability of emergency care.
  

 There  are  two  major  proximate  causes  of  severe  injuries in crashes:

• The first is hard contact, either when an occupant  is  struck  by  a surface  intruding  into  the  passenger compartment  or  
• when  an  inadequately  restrained  occupant strikes against the intact compartment. This is called  restrained  deceleration. It occurswhen  seatbelts  or  airbags  prevent  contact  with  the  compartment. In these cases, injuries tend to be less severe, but severe injury may still be caused by forces from the belt or airbag.
• Historically, seat belts have been the most successful of all vehicular  safety  features.
• Air  bags help distribute the narrowly applied restraining  force of a  belt,  and  they  offer some protection for unbelted occupants.
• Side impacts are very different from frontal collisions.Intrusion into the passenger compartment is common, and shoulder–lap belts are less effective in limiting lateral mo-tion  of  the  occupant.
• A study has concluded that light  vehicles  are  fundamentally  less  safe than heavy vehicles.
• Moreover, the average heavier vehicle tends to be more protective of its occupants also because of its size, higher general quality, and the incorporation of more recent safety features.
• The  disparity  in  height,  stiffness,and mass between light trucks and pas-senger cars is a major safety issue.