“Concise Theory of Road Safety”

The book can be downloaded for free from here: ConciseTheoryOfRoadSafety.pdf (1.1 MB)
The current version is dated 11 March 2020.

You may also be interested in “Road Safety Theory” available at:
RoadSafetyTheory.com

You may also be interested in a companion book available at: BluntInjuryandDamage.com

About the Book

If you say that road safety is very much a data-driven subject, I will agree with you. But theory is needed, particularly because of the many deficiencies of road safety data, and because it makes thinking easier.

So far as this book is concerned, theory means the following topics.

  • The detection of, and the reaction to, emergencies. That is, the subject is the last second or so before the vehicle strikes something. An important example is the operation of AEB (autonomous emergency braking) systems. This term refers to technologies fitted to a vehicle that detect an obstacle and, without command from the driver, brake the vehicle as strongly as possible.

  • The impact of the human with a vehicle (either the exterior or the interior). A vehicle's front (e.g., the bonnet) should act as a cushion for pedestrians and other unprotected road users, being soft in comparison with the very stiff structures under the bonnet, and a vehicle's interior (including the restraint systems) should act as a cushion for the occupants.

  • Generalisation from a test to the real world: a test of a vehicle (one simulating a pedestrian impact, for example) is in specified conditions, but many other sets of conditions (many other speeds, for example) occur in real-world accidents.

The attitude in this book is to say let's start with the last instant before impact. It is found empirically (that is, from data) that the effect of speed on the probability of death is strong. A theory is quite likely to be useful even if it applies only to the fraction of a second before impact, as vehicle braking can be sufficiently sharp that a fraction of a second is enough for a worthwhile reduction in impact speed to take place.

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