Freedom To auto enjoyment contra Freedom From traffic accidents.

Paper on "Road Safety on 4 Continents"

Bangkok, 14-16 November 2007

                               Per A Loken, professor, Dr. Ing.

SafeTraffic.info

ABSTRACT

The drivers of vehicles on the roads want freedom from accidents. Quite some number of the same drivers want as well freedom to speed, acceleration, enjoyment and excitement on the roads. In a number of areas in the society stringent ethical norms are established. For the road traffic, however, we find no ethical norms.

The basic evaluation ends in a conclusion that we can not obtain both freedom to auto enjoyment as well as freedom from road traffic accidents. We have to select the one of the two. If the society change the priority and set freedom from accidents as the first priority, the auto enjoyment on the public roads will have to be taken away. The driving of cars would then be limited to the main purpose to move from A to B. The clear advantage of keeping the freedom To, away from the public roads are the added freedom From for the rest of us.  

Safe traffic may be analyzed from three angles which all together have to be safe to get a safe traffic. These are safe vehicles on safe roads with careful drivers. If all these three items are safe, the chances for a safe journey are rather good. If one of the factors is not good, the journey may not be safe. The vehicles are improved in the task to protect the people inside against injuries in the case of an accident. The safest roads have at least two lanes in each direction with a solid barrier in between. In Sweden a 2+1 lane system has been taken in use over the last years. Between the two directions a strong mid barrier is installed. This design prevents the damaging head-on collisions by one car coming over in the wrong lane.

Seen from a safe traffic point of view, the drivers are the main important item. If the drivers are careful and responsible, even lack of safety connected to the car or the road can be compensated. If the driver goes for speed and enjoyment on the road, this may end in accidents even if the car and road are perfect. The drivers are therefore the key element in a strategy towards safe traffic.

From a technical point of view the vehicles may be equipped with a black box, knowing exactly where the car is at any time using the GPS system. This means that the car may know the speed limit at the road. The navigation box may include a verbal speed informing system, a high speed preventer and a data logger writing speed data.

Zero vision is a long term aim to avoid any killed or seriously injured in the road traffic. Is it possible at all to keep the freedom to speed and enjoyment and at the same time approach zero accidents? The zero vision is by definition close to impossible. If this impossible aim shall have any chance to succeed, this mean that the freedom From accidents have to get the first priority.

 1         Freedom to and freedom from

Freedom is a key item for most people. We all want freedom over a wide range from the free selection of education, the free selection of where to live, where to work and how to travel. The freedom To is an important side of our civilization. At the other side we also want freedom From a number of things as poverty, war, accidents and murder.

 On the roads we want freedom To speed, acceleration, enjoyment and excitement at the same time as we want freedom From accidents, injuries and murder. For quite some individuals the conflict between the freedom From and the freedom To is not obvious. If you select the freedom To you may not get the freedom From, or at the other side if you select the freedom From you may not get the freedom To.

 One part of this conflict is shown on figure 1. Here Volvo shows an ocean race sailing boat used by THEM. Further is shown a Volvo vehicle in great speed referred to YOU. The text tells about the adrenalin kicking action sports, clearly promoting the freedom To. The result of freedom To could end as shown on figure 10 with the two excited young men ended outside the road and one was killed and one prosecuted.

Figure 1: Volvo shows adrenalin kicking action sports for Them (DE) in a sailing bout and for You(DU) in a Volvo vehicle at high speed.

2         Ethics in traffic and other areas in the society

In a number of areas in the society, stringent ethical norms are established. This applies to the doctors and nurses in the handling of sick people. The lawyers have their ethical norm covering how to behave towards their customers, the society and toward their colleagues. The same applies to a number of companies wanting to have a stringent and correct attitude towards their employees, their customers and suppliers. On the road, however, we find no ethical norm.

On the airports the passengers are controlled to avoid any terrorists on the airplanes.  This control has been intensified at high cost and time delay for the passengers. This is done for the safety of the passengers, imposed by the authorities in the ministry of transport. It is hard to remember any Norwegian killed by a terrorist on a Norwegian airplane. The same ministry is responsible for the safety on the roads. Here one person is killed nearly every day. Why does the ministry of transport have one safety standard related to potential terrorists on the airplanes and another related to the road traffic?

 An auto journalist in the Norwegian state owned TV have run for years a program named "Autofil". This TV program promotes unsafe driving on the road. The same is some car sellers doing through their sales material and advertisements. They promote the freedom to speed, auto fun and excitement on the road as shown in an advertisement from BMW on figure 2. As a result we find the lack of freedom from accidents involving both those responsible for the enjoyable driving, as well as a number of innocents.

3         Safe traffic

Safe traffic may be analyzed from three angles which all together have to be safe to get a safe traffic. These are safe vehicles on safe roads with careful drivers. If all these three items are safe, the chances for a safe road journey are rather good. If one of the factors is not good, the journey may not be safe.

Figure 2: BMW: "Everything else got suddenly boring."

In January 2007 the number of killed by road traffic accidents in Denmark was 37. This number is three times compared to the number killed in 2006, then 12 were killed. The reason for this is explained by the director of Safe Traffic in Denmark, Mr. la Cour Sell. He explains that the January 2007 was mild with no snow and ice. The result was that the Danes were driving as usual, resulting in the normal number of killed in the traffic during one month. The special situation was therefore January 2006.

During that month the temperature was below zero with plenty of snow and ice on the roads. The Danish roads during that month were therefore less safe compared to the normal Danish roads. This could have resulted in a larger number of killed, if the drivers behaved as normal. Surely they did not. The traffic probably were reduced and the drivers

Diagram 1: Injured over the day by BMW and Saab models.  

 compensated the unsafe roads by being special careful in their driving on the icy roads. This together resulted in 1/3 number of killed on the Danish roads compared to "normal". A less safe road or a less safe vehicle can therefore be compensated by a careful driver.

 We probably have the opposite situation as well. A safer vehicle may result in a less careful driving giving more accidents and a larger number of killed.

 The Saab vehicle is regarded as one of the safest cars ever made. The BMW is at the other side not regarded as an unsafe car. It is no reason to believe that the BMW 3-Serie is less than 50 % safe compared to the Saab as indicated by the diagram 1 (2001 -2003). The reason behind the diagram is probably that the Saab drivers are more careful compared to the BMW drivers. This is also reasonable from the message the BMW marketing give of their cars. Figure 2 shows a full page advertisement by BMW in a Norwegian paper with the text: "Everything else is suddenly boring." (2003) BMW is by this advertisement promoting unsafe driving with their cars resulting in more injured and killed on the roads.

4         Vehicles

The vehicles are improved in the task to protect the people inside the cars against injuries in the case of an accident. This is done by stronger cars with energy absorbing zones and protecting compartements, on one side and more safe interiors with driver and passenger's airbags, side and side-curtain air bags and safety belts with pre-tensioners and belt force limiters for all passengers in addition to correctly positioned head restraints. Further cars may be equipped with adaptive cruise control with collision warning and brake support in addition to lane departure systems as active safety devices.

Other areas of improvements are the ABS(Antilock Brake System) and the ESP(Electronic Stability Program) systems. These improve the ability of the driver to keep the car on the road.

The safer cars would reduce the number of injuries, under the condition that the car is driven at the same risk level. If the driver feels safer in the car and increase the risk level in his/her driving, the result could as well be increased number of killed in the traffic.

In EU all cars are controlled every second year. For a small country as Norway this gives an annual cost of around 500 million NOK. (60 mill. EUR) Does this cost pay in the way of reduced injuries and killed? An investigation performed by  Institute of Transport Economics  has concluded with a surprising answer. They found no reduction in the number of injuries and killed in road accidents as a result of the EU vehicle controls. The reason for this could be that the control mainly finds minor faults or that the drivers are aware of any major fault and drives more carefully until this is corrected.

The car manufacturing companies are competing in their sales of their cars. The more they sell, the more they earn. They are not responsible for the way their cars are used by the customers. In reality, the car seller would not cry if the car was driven to wreck and the owner bought another one. The car seller has therefore an economic interest in the freedom to speed, acceleration, enjoyment and excitement on the roads. For a number of cases their sales material and advertisement carries this message by promoting an unsafe driving on the roads. The more accidents, the more sales and the more repair in their repair workshops. This is shown on the bottom line.                 

Figure 3: Audi promotes their Quattro in a full page advertisement.

 5         Roads

 The safest roads has at least two lanes in each direction with a solid barrier in between. These roads have further no level crossings. Even with heavy traffic these roads have least accidents in relation to the total driven vehiclekilometre.  Only a limited part of the total road system can be at this standard.

 In Sweden a 2 + 1 lane system has been taken in use over the last years. Here the two lanes are used for some km in each direction, one at a time. When it is two lanes in one direction there is one lane in the other. Between the two directions a strong mid barrier is installed. This design prevents the damaging head-on collisions by a car coming over in the wrong lane.

Roundabouts are regarded safer then normal crossings of two roads. The main reason for this is probably the need for reduced speed due to the shape of the roundabout as well as a lower number of conflict points. This in addition to the clear rules for who has the rights to drive, gives a better accident statistics compared to the normal crossings. The design of roundabouts are quite varied in Norway and there is a tendency to have a design allowing the cars on the main road the possibility to drive straight through without much reduction in the speed. This does increase the capacity. It is an open question if the safety is taken care of by this design.

6         Drivers

 Seen from a safe traffic point of view, the drivers are the main important item. If the drivers are careful and responsible, even the lack of safety connected to the car or the road  can be compensated. If the driver goes for speed, acceleration, enjoyment and excitement on the road, this may end in accidents even if the car and road are perfect seen for a safety angle. The drivers are therefore probably the key element in a strategy towards safe traffic. This fact should therefore open for active advocating of careful driving. All drivers have to get their driving license to be allowed to drive a motor car. When a friend of mine renewed his license a few years ago the new date of expire was in 2041. At that time my friend is 100 years. The authority responsible for the driving competence has by this system disconnected themselves from a large number of drivers.

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