This publication presents estimates of the risk of driver injury in popular models of car once involved in a two car collision injury accident. It also includes, at a more general level, estimates of accident involvement rates and associated casualty rates analysed, within broad groups, by age and performance of car, and whether the car is privately or company owned. The statistics in this publication are based on personal injury road accident data reported to the Department of Transport by police forces within Great Britain. The publication is in three parts. The first part relates to the risk of driver injury in popular models of car once involved in two car collision injury accidents, generally known as secondary or passive safety. The estimates are shown in Tables A and B. The second part relates to car accident involvement and casualty rates, generally known as primary or active safety, and estimates are shown in Tables C and D. Part 3 provides summaries of related areas of work currently being developed by the Department. Structural design is the key factor in secondary safety and is complemented by good design of interior fittings, particularly seat belts, energy absorbing steering wheels and columns, padded dashboards and the provision of airbag supplementary restraints. Together these have great potential for reducing the number of road casualties. By contrast, primary safety - accident avoidance - is mainly influenced by the driver but vehicle design features such as good braking, handling, stability, lighting and driver vision, can all help the driver to avoid accidents. The first part of the publication summarises the adopted methodology which uses the risk of driver injury as a basis for assessing the secondary safety features of cars, sets out the results in Tables A and B, and summarises the main conclusions. The second part of the publication summarises the accident involvement and casualty rates for particular groups of car, sets out results in Tables C and D, and summarises the main conclusions. The third part outlines progress on work on calculating Car safety ratings which only reflect inherent structural safety and the efficiency of safety fittings by excluding the effect of mass in an injury accident. There is also an examination of the aggressivity of cars in injury accidents. This bas been determined as the risk of injury to the other driver involved in a collision with a certain model of car. It also includes an analysis of factors affecting the severity of injury to pedestrians hit by cars. This is followed by a section in the form of appendices which set out definitions, and a more detailed description of the source and coverage of the car accident data used in this report for the estimation of car driver injury accident rates. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting