'VISION ZERO': THE NEED FOR CRASHWORTHY SYSTEMS

The road toll in Australia in 1999 was equivalent to around fifteen Concords or around three Jumbo commercial aircraft crashing each year killing all on board. In 1997 over 20,000 people were injured, around half the number it takes to fill the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne. However, road systems and vehicles that we know are unsafe at any speed are put up with because when a crash occurs, liability is often shed through blaming one of the victims. Road and vehicle designs must now be designed to be tolerant of human error so that they are benign in terms of injury and fatalities when the uncontrollable error does occur if we are to advance towards a zero road toll. This paper discusses the paradigm shift in road-safety and crashworthiness thinking that must now be applied within our road system. Examples are presented that demonstrate a lack of fundamental understanding in crashworthiness within the road system. This is resulting in unnecessary fatalities. The authors argue that a robust understanding of the accident process, the injury process and structural crashworthiness must be acquired in order to reduce these fatalities. Some analyses for assessing the crashworthiness of a system are presented that demonstrate an acceptable approach. The paper further argues that no longer can the road infrastructure, vehicle and user/driver systems continue to be developed in separation of each other. The authors call for standards to ensure that system interaction be compatible between heavy vehicles, light vehicles, road furniture and road barriers. Similarly, the authors support the underlying premise of "Zero Vision" philosophy - namely, that the main criterion for design, specification and commissioning of systems for service must be based on human injury tolerance. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E205861.