Title: Safety impacts of vehicular information technology

Authors: P. Moriarty, D. Honnery

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, Caulfeld Campus, 900 Dandenong Rd, Caulfeld East, Victoria 3145, Australia. Department of Mechanical Engineering, PO Box 31, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia

Abstract: Although road trafic fatalities in the high-income countries have fallen markedly in recent decades, non-fatality crashes have not. Further reduction in crash severity and frequency will be hampered by probable changes to the car-driving population, car weight, and share of nonmotorized travel. Distraction from the driving task could also increase in parallel with in-vehicle telematics use. Use of the new information technology is increasingly seen as a solution to the road safety problem. It is argued here that although the new technology has a key role to play in improving road transport generally, and could be very useful in crash protection, it will be of less help in reducing collision frequency.

Keywords: crash avoidance; crash protection; ergonomics; intelligent transport systems; vehicle design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2003.003182

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2003 Vol.31 No.2, pp.176-186

Published online: 14 Jul 2003 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article