Vulnerable road users

Reducing accident severity by protecting people better in vehicles from injury severity. Protecting pedestrians and other vulnerable road users by vehicle design, and protecting two wheelers by using appropriate helmets. 

Rasshofer, R. H., Schwarz, D., Morhart, C., Biebl, E. (2009). Cooperative sensor technology for preventive vulnerable road user protection. In list International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV 2009). No. 09-0136. 

Dahdah, S. (2008). Modeling an infrastructure safety rating for vulnerable road users in developing countries. Dissertation, The George Washington University. 

Road Safety Audit considers the safety of all road users and in particular vulnerable road users such as the visually and mobility impaired, cyclists, pedestrians, equestrians, motorcyclists, children and the elderly. 

Websites representing vulnerable road users may be of particular interest, for example the RNIB, RNID and British Horse Society all have useful sites. 

The following section looks at accidents in urban areas away from junctions where vulnerable road users are over-represented in accidents. 

Injuries to pedestrians are greater as the speed of vehicles increases. Serious consideration should be given to reducing approach speeds, especially where vulnerable road users are expected to cross. 

This section examines safety from the point of view of some of those most affected, namely the vulnerable road users who tend to be more seriously injured when accidents occur. 

There is very little information on road traffic accidents affecting some of the most vulnerable road users, for example people with disabilities and equestrians. Police STATS19 data do not routinely record whether someone is blind, partially sighted, deaf or a wheelchair user. Until 2000, data were not collected on horses involved in road traffic accidents. 

Oxley, J., Corben, B., Pddes, B., O Hare, M., and Rothengatter, T. 2004. Older Vulnerable Road Users—Measures to Reduce Crash and Injury Risk. Melbourne, Australia MU ARC. 

In crashes between different vehicle types differences in, mass and the protection that is offered are important considerations for the severity of the outcome. In a crash, the lightest party is at a disadvantage as it absorbs relatively more kinetic energy and because the vehicle generally offers less protection to an occupant than do heavier vehicles. This is also the reason why unprotected road users like pedestrians and cyclists, also called vulnerable road users, often sustain serious injuries. 

The fifth part. Other Road Users, implicitly acknowledges that most of the previous discussion was focused on car drivers. But these are not the only road users that contribute to and suffer from crashes. The others, often labeled as the vulnerable road users, consist of primarily riders of powered two-wheel vehicles (mopeds and motorcycles) and pedestrians. They are considered vulnerable for an obvious reason they do not have the protective shield of the car. However the two groups are also distinctly different from each other on at least two dimensions. These include regulation motorcyclists are regulated through licensing, whereas bicyclists and pedestrians are not age motorcyclists essentially mimic the driver population in... 

Driving in Traffic Traffic rules Co-operation Hazard perception Automation Disobeying rules Close-following Low friction Vulnerable road users Calibration of driving skills Own driving style... 

Scope Of The Problem Crash And Injury Risk Of Vulnerable Road Users... 

Finally, although we call all pedestrians vulnerable road users an age-sensitive aspect of vulnerability is frailty. Older people are more frail, and when injured are less likely to survive -either the injury itself or the post-crash treatment. This is reflected in the casualty rates, but should be more pronounced if the analysis is conducted separately on fatal crashes. Keall (1995), therefore, also conducted separate analyses of fatality and severe injury rates and the results of these analyses are plotted in Figure 15-6. These analyses further differentiated the older pedestrians from the rest of the pedestrian population. In addition, the analyses showed... 

Avenoso, A. and J. Beckmann (2005). The Safety of Vulnerable Road Users in the Southern, Eastern and Central European Countries (The SEC Belt ). European Transport Safety... 

De Brabander, B. and L. Vereeck (2007). Safety effects of roundabouts in Flanders Signal type, speed limits and vulnerable road users. Accid. Anal Prev., 39(3), 591-599. 

Translate effective science-based information into policies and practices that protect vehicle occupants and vulnerable road users. 

SHI 12] Shinar D., Safety and mobility of vulnerable road users pedestrians, bicyclists, axtAmoioxcych , Accident Analysis and Prevention, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 1-2,2012. 

Regarding accident data analysis and identification of critical scenarios, the currently ongoing EU project Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRU 13], gives an overview on European cyeling accident data. Analysis of a range of databases has been conducted to identify scenarios for cyclists. The CARE database (European Road Accident Database) has been used as the most widely available database for EU accidents and data fiom national databases of Austria, Finland, Spain, Sweden and the UK have been... 

IDI 12] IDIADA, Innovative concepts for smart road restraint systems to provide greater safety for vulnerable road users, D 2.4 Final Report SmartRRS, 2012. 

Improving Safety and Mobility of Vulnerable Road Users Through ITS Applications... 

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