Why Is Kinetic Energy So Important

Having established that higher travel speeds lead to more casualty crashes, it is important to understand why. There are several factors  

The higher the speed, the more complex the information processing task (for a given enviromnent), as the sensory inputs are changing more rapidly and any distraction sources have their effects magnified. 

FIGURE 9.2 Stopping distance at 60 km/h. (Courtesy of Logan, D., and Corben, B., Speed Risk Curves Unpublished Road Safety Modelling, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia, 2013.) 

Eliminating Serious Injury and Death from Road Transport 

The faster an individual is travelling relative to the prevailing traffic stream, the more likely that other drivers will misjudge things like closing speed, likelihood of conflict, and so on, and the higher the likelihood of a loss of control should an emergency arise. 

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