In a development that proves the safety benefits of automotive Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS), 2009 was the least deadly year on American roads in nearly 60 years.
Fewest Fatalities Since 1950
A recently released report from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) revealed that 33,808 people died from traffic accidents in the United States in 2009, representing a 9.7 percent decline in total road deaths over the previous year and the lowest number of deaths since 1950.
Fatalities declined for all categories of vehicle occupants and non-occupants, including motorcycles, which had previously seen a continuous 11-year increase, and pedestrians, who generally have no built-in protection system when colliding with a motor vehicle. Specifically, 850 fewer people died from motorcycle accidents and 6,000 less were injured; 322 pedestrian lives were saved compared to 2008 and 10,000 less were injured.
The passenger vehicle segment, however, saw the greatest gains. This, naturally, is due to the fact that there are more cars on the road than large trucks, motorcycles or bicycles. but there is no diminishing the magnitude of the numbers. Compared to 2008 data, 2,080 fewer deaths occurred on American highways and an astounding 96,000 less injuries were suffered in 2009.
What’s more, these across-the-board decreases in fatalities and injuries occurred in a year when total Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) increased slightly by 0.2 percent to just less than three trillion miles The result is a historically low fatality and injury rate of 1.13 deaths per 100M VMT, the lowest ever recorded.
What is not surprising, however, is that such results appear at a time when both the government and automotive industry are pushing safety like never before.
ADAS Gaining Traction
In the United States, as well as in nearly every other country, automotive OEMs are steadily increasing the availability and visibility of their safety and driver assistance systems. In 2009, 4 million ADAS units were shipped in North American cars, according to iSuppli. iSuppli forecasts that by 2017, total OEM ADAS will hit 30.7 million vehicles, equating to a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 29.0 percent from 2009 to 2017.
On top of current systems, OEMs also have committed time and resources to new, innovative applications that promise to further revolutionize the field of automotive safety.
Many Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that would have had an effect on highway-speed fatalities and injuries have only been available for the last several years, given that the systems were introduced around model year 2006. Since then, ADAS systems have found wider usage, undoubtedly impacting NHTSA data positively. In particular, such ADAS systems would include adaptive cruise control as well as the oft-accompanying collision avoidance and mitigation system, lane departure warning, side object detection and driver monitoring.
Improving ADAS
As OEMs steadily increase the availability of current systems, both OEMs and suppliers also continue to work on the next generation of automotive safety. Vehicle-to-vehicle communications, such as the kind found in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s IntelliDrive project, can address up to 82 percent of all crashes by unimpaired drivers, which will have considerable impact on the fatality and injury statistics reported by the NHTSA.
The government is also helping with its own efforts and hopes for even better results in 2010.
In many cases, these initiatives become joint efforts encompassing government agencies, automotive OEMs and industry suppliers. Projects such as IntelliDrive in the United States or CVIS in Europe are prime examples of such cooperation, while industry events such as the ITS World Congress, SVOX Forum and various Auto Shows provide the venues to make connections and begin discussions on how to maximize the impact of these projects.
That communication is necessary in some cases. For instance, the government-led discussion on distracted driving this week in Washington, D.C. will certainly have consequences for the automotive industry. Communication and cooperation are now as important as ever, given that both the U.S. government and the automotive industry aim to save more lives in the coming years.
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