Adverse weather and road conditions increase accident risks considerably. Speed adaptation due to adverse conditions is not great enough to balance the increased risk, which has been demonstrated in several statistical studies as well as in this simulator study. Drivers are not able to judge the road conditions well enough to modify their behaviour. For drivers not used to icy roads, even a clear warning without definite advice on needed behaviour is not enough to maintain an acceptable safety standard. On the other hand, the simulator study suggests that with the use of new technologies, road safety can be enhanced in some cases even without increasing travel times. The number of run-off-the-road accidents decreased, together with decreased overall travel time, when a Weather-related Intelligent Speed Adaptation system was tested in the driving simulator. For the covering abstract see ITRD E114174.
Abstract