The mobile phone is symbolic of ‘distraction in traffic’. But apart from mobile phone calls, texting, or listening to music, many drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are occupied with all sorts of other activities that may distract them. Examples are: operating the navigation system, eating, drinking, talking to passengers or daydreaming.
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Driving under the influence of drugs or impairing medicines reduces fitness to drive[i] and increases crash risk. Drugs have a numbing, stimulating or mind-altering effect on the brain, or a combination of these effects, which impair traffic task performance. For drug use in traffic, we (unfortunately) have to rely on research dating back to 2011.
Driver fatigue is estimated to be a (contributing) factor in 15 to 20% of crashes, but estimates in individual studies vary widely. Drivers who are tired are less attentive and react less quickly and less adequately than drivers who are not tired. They also get irritated and frustrated more easily.
Intelligent transport and advanced driver assistance systems are implementations of information and communication technology in vehicles and in the transport infrastructure to make traffic safer, more efficient, more comfortable, more reliable and more eco-friendly.
Visual information is of the utmost importance to road users. In darkness, both public lighting and vehicle lighting help road users take stock of the traffic situation and help them to be seen by others. Installing public lighting leads to a 50% reduction in the number of nighttime injury crashes. Disavantages of public lighting are, among other things, the risk of collisons with lamp posts, light pollution and the costs of material, maintenance and energy consumption. The road safety effects of a reduction in illuminance level on motorways vary according to the traffic situation.
In the past ten years (2006-2015) an average of 11 road deaths per year in the Netherlands was registered in crashes involving agricultural vehicles. Compared to the early 1990s, the average number of road deaths due to crashes involving an agricultural vehicle increased from 1% to 2% of the total number of road deaths in the Netherlands. Agricultural vehicles are defined as agricultural and forestry tractors as well as self-propelled machinery used in farming, construction industry, civil engineering and the maintenance of public green spaces.