Governments must invest in infrastructure to support developing and life-saving car technology, but drivers must also realise their role in reducing road trauma, experts say.
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Leading Monash University Research Centre expert Associate Professor Stuart Newstead has warned against relying solely on technology and infrastructure as authorities work to push the road toll down to zero. He said technologies, including automatic breaking systems, could play a significant role but until we had a fully automated driving system human behaviour remained the most significant and devastating variable.
A MUARC report said companies and fleet car providers must lead the way in ensuring up-to-date vehicles with life-saving safety features are the predominant type of cars on our roads. In recent years, the focus on vehicle safety has shifted away from preventing car occupants from sustaining injuries towards stopping a crash from occurring in the first place, the report states.
The world-renowned Safety Systems approach, borne from the lauded Swedish Vision Zero model, notes vehicles safety as a cornerstone component for road safety management and planning.
Monash University Accident Research Centre Dr David Logan said it was only natural that authorities moved their focus away from purely driver behaviour towards road infrastructure and increasingly technology.
He said lane keeping technology could eventually replace infrastructure as a more effective, cheaper alternative that could travel where ever a car did.
“(The countries that are performing the best) not only did they use behaviour, they also started to look at other methods they could use,” Dr Logan said.
“They looked at a systems approach – how a whole transport system, roads vehicle people and speeds travel at could be used as a system to address road trauma.”
But, Associate Professor Stuart Newstead said the current technology was driver assist technology not automated driving technology.
“The potential contributions (of technology) are quite significant,” Professor Newstead said.
Driving ‘easy as riding train’
Fully automated cars would make driving “as easy as riding a train” according to one professor.
Some experts say there will be a time when cars are part of a wider public transport network that commuters can hope on or off of. But that future is far away from reality.
“One of our enduring problems that we saw last year was the rural single vehicle crash,” Associate Professor Stuart Newstead said.
“We still have vast tracks of our major highways that aren’t supported by appropriate infrastructure, including the Hume Highway.”
The TAC is investing in record infrastructure. Over the next five years the state government will make the largest investment ever to make rural roads safer.
Barriers and edge lines will be placed on 2500 kilometres of the riskiest sections of the two speed high-speed rural road network.
Data shows that 60-70km/h intersections are where 12 per cent of deaths and 23 per cent of serious injuries occur.
“When the car is partially automated it assists, but the responsibility still lies with the driver to be alert and able to control the vehicle,” Professor Newstead said.
