This paper reviews past trends in road traffic accidents, and discusses the need to continue developing new safety measures if the downward trend in deaths and injuries is to be maintained beyond the Department of Transport's year 2000 target. It is important that the advances be made on a number of different safety fronts, from human behaviour through road design and traffic engineering to vehicle construction and regulation. TRL's broad expertise has enables it to play a central role in developments in all these fields, and research currently in hand encourages the expectation that there is still ample scope for further safety improvements in the future. The paper discusses accident data collection and analysis, driver training and testing, drinking and driving, speed limits, road surface skid resistance, traffic safety engineering and traffic calming, vehicle handling and braking, car occupant protection in frontal and side impacts, pedestrian protection and motorcycle safety. (A)
Abstract