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Last year, 1,55,781 people lost their lives on our roads. That’s like three A320 domestic aircraft crashing every day. Let that sink in. That annual road fatalities now make the headlines is an important first step. Are we looking at road safety in a holistic enough manner? Sure, cars in India are getting safer due to greater crash testing, and car buyers today are selecting cars with good safety scores, but safer cars are only part of the solution. What we need to create are safer roads, safer driving conditions and safer drivers. Must say the 2022 report on road accidents in India provides some interesting insights. It, for example, tells us that 4,446 Indians lost their lives because of potholes. That’s just abysmal. Even worse, 9,211 people were killed due to ‘road work’ or construction. Surely the big corporations responsible for roadworks can spend more on making safer passages and better-quality barriers. 20 percent of fatalities were pedestrians and 45 percent of the total were on two-wheelers.
In the ever-evolving landscape of automotive technology, safety remains a paramount concern. As vehicles become smarter and more sophisticated, the question arises: Are drivers adapting to this safety shift at the same pace as the cars they operate? Getting more accurate data on accidents isn’t a problem we in India face alone; it’s a global problem. Reading skid marks accurately is getting more and more difficult with anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control systems, and the same can be said of smart or semi-active seat belts. There are, however, several options open to engineers and crash investigators today. Some include aircraft-like black boxes or electronic data recorders (EDR) that save key data for short periods of time. Our cars already produce loads and loads of data like speed, braking and acceleration, and have the requisite hardware. And then we could also get data off our cell phones and their gyros.
Key Points
1. The Evolution of Automotive Safety: A Technological Marvel: Cars today are equipped with safety features that were once considered futuristic. Adaptive cruise control, lane departure warnings, and automatic emergency braking are now commonplace.
2. Driver-Assistance Technologies: Bridging the Gap to Autonomy: Driver-assistance technologies, such as adaptive steering and parking assistance, are designed to make driving easier and safer.
3. The Human Factor: Understanding Driver Behavior: While cars are evolving, the human element remains a critical factor in road safety.
4. Challenges and Misconceptions: Breaking Down Barriers to Adoption: Despite the benefits, there are challenges and misconceptions surrounding advanced safety features.
5. The Lethal Impact of Over Speeding: Delve into the alarming statistics that reveal the extent of the issue. By understanding the gravity of the situation, readers can appreciate the urgency of implementing effective measures to curb over speeding and enhance road safety.
6. Beyond Speed Limits: Analyzing Factors Contributing to Accidents: Recognize that speed, although a primary factor, is not always the sole cause of accidents. Explore the multifaceted nature of accidents, as elucidated by organizations like the National Transportation Safety Board in the US. Uncover the various factors that often combine to create a hazardous road environment.
7.Challenges in Data Collection: A Global Predicament: Acknowledge that obtaining accurate accident data is a global challenge. Explore the difficulties in reading skid marks accurately, especially in the era of advanced safety features like anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control systems.
8. Utilizing Inherent Vehicle Data: Tapping into Car Telemetry: Highlight the wealth of data already generated by modern vehicles, including speed, braking, and acceleration information.
Speed apart, what we also need to do urgently is incorporate highway driving as part of our licensing process. We also need to set realistic speed limits that don’t skew data, and then enforcement for speeding also needs to be stepped up. Also, where, for example, are the Stop signs you see all over the world at intersections? The red octagons with the word STOP written in white letters? They are part of the Vienna Convention on road signs and signals; but how many have you seen here? Do we even have to stop at intersections.