| Popis: |
Pedestrian fatalities and injuries resulting from traffic accidents cause immeasurable personal suffering and an immense economic loss. The comparison of international accident statistics indicates that pedestrian safety has improved in highly developed countries while the situation in developing countries is still serious. The majority of pedestrians involved in road accidents get harmed in collisions with motorised vehicles, especially with passenger cars. In spite of a wide variety of existing countermeasures promising innovations are not feasible due to the lack of drivers’ willingness to pay. To overcome this problem, authorities like the European Union have successfully implemented directives setting safety standards for new cars. Although the benefits of such legislative and encouraging countermeasures are undoubted, the practical relevance of the test procedures is heavily contended. In-depth accident investigation like IMPAIR analyses single pedestrian accidents from an interdisciplinary perspective and yields a better understanding of the accident occurrence and kinematics. In combination with macroscopic approaches, the results of in-depth analyses enable an advancement of directives and legislations and offer valuable starting points for further studies to increase pedestrian safety. Keywords: pedestrian-car collision, accident statistics, countermeasures, directives, encouragement, interdisciplinary investigation |
