The Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide has been conducting in-depth crash investigation over three decades. The studies conducted over this period involve scrambling an investigation team to attend crashes when notified via the ambulance radio. Measurements are taken at the crash scene relating to the people, vehicles and site conditions involved. This data may then be used to create a reconstruction of the crash and to better inform agencies about the true causes of crashes. Current engineering practices place much emphasis on the crash history of specific sites and the use of crash databases gathered by the police. However, such data often does not reveal much about an individual crash and is only useful when patterns of crashes emerge. The key perspective that is often missing in road safety management is that of the road user themselves. This paper presents some cases from in-depth crash research performed in South Australia. The paper is written from an engineering perspective and highlights the way in which we have come to accept common road safety problems. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E211783.
Samenvatting