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Why Active Safety?

Tremendous progress has been made in vehicle safety. The fatality rate per hundred million vehicle miles traveled fell from 5.5 in the mid-1960's to 1.7 in 1994. However, there are still nearly 7 million motor vehicle crashes, involving 11.3 million vehicles and accounting for a staggering 42,000 deaths, each year in the US. This translates to a loss of over $280 billion, or $820 per US resident per year.

Early automotive safety initiatives focused on passive measures including preventive measures (improved headlights, windshield wipers, and tire traction) and protective measures (seatbelts, airbags, and crush zones). These improvements have dramatically reduced the rate of crash-related injury severity and fatalities.

However, in recent years both the injury and fatality rates have leveled off. This suggests that new approaches for actively preventing vehicle crashes will be needed in order to further reduce the number of accidents, injuries and fatalities.

 

 

 

For more information contact: TASI: tasi@iupui.edu TASI Driving Simulator Laboratory: tdsl@iupui.edu