China 
Africa 
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
The potential of casualty prevention in road traffic
Published in Dinesh Mohan, Geetam Tiwari, Sustainable Approaches to Urban Transport, 2019
Improved passive vehicle safety has probably saved about 20% of fatalities in the last two decades (Broughton, 2003; Koornstra et al., 2002) in the European Union (EU). Car renewal and improved passive vehicle safety could further save more than 20% of fatalities in the next two decades, if, in time, priority would be given to new effective vehicle safety regulations, such as an automatic ignition block if someone is not belted, soft-nose car construction for vulnerable road user protection, compatibility requirements for car and freight vehicles, under-run protection for trucks and lorries, etc. Also regulations for active vehicle safety that have been proved to be effective, if timely taken and if retrofitted, could save more than 30% of fatalities. Most effective, in the short run, are mainly vehicle devices that improve risk perception or keep drivers within legal limits, such as intelligent speed adaptors, automatic daytime running lights (DRL), collision avoidance assistance devices, driving data recorders with feedback information, etc. Intelligent speed adaptors save probably between 20% to 40% of fatalities (Várhely, 2003; Oei and Polak, 2002) and for driver monitoring by in-car data recorders the figure is probably over 20% (Wouters and Bos, 1997, 2000; Heinzman and Schade, 2003), while DRL saves dependence on the region’s latitude saving approximately 8% to 20% casualties in multiple daytime crashes (also for crashes with cyclists and pedestrians). Figure 15.7 shows the result of a meta-analytic study on effects of DRL use, reported to the Directorate General for Energy and Transport (DG-TREN) of the EU (Koornstra et al., 1997).
The effect of lighting conditions and use of headlights on drivers’ perception and appraisal of approaching vehicles at junctions
Published in Ergonomics, 2018
Yee Mun Lee, Elizabeth Sheppard
Since February 2011, there is a regulation in effect in Europe which requires automobile manufacturers to equip AHO for all vehicles – not just motorcycles (SWOV 2013). However, there are concerns that car DRL might decrease the visual conspicuity of motorcycles, making them harder to detect (e.g. Knight et al. 2006) and create ‘visual noise’ (Cavallo and Pinto 2012). It was demonstrated in this study that DRL is not particularly beneficial for cars in terms of either increasing others’ ability to perceive them or altering judgements made about them. If DRL on cars decreases drivers’ ability to detect motorcycles, the implementation of DRL on cars should be reconsidered. However, this study revealed that the DRL did decrease drivers’ judgements that it was safe to pull out in front of motorcycles, which suggests that the usefulness of DRL may be related to decision-making for motorcycles. As this study recruited a fairly homogenous group of young and relatively inexperienced drivers, future work would be needed to determine whether highly experienced drivers are similarly influenced by headlights and lighting conditions.