Staying safe

Does more need to be done to discourage distracted driving?

Yes, it certainly does. We are aiming to accelerate efforts to eliminate distracted driving. I also believe that distracted driving is far more prevalent than the measured data from police records would suggest. Here, we need to close the data gap and be more progressive about the way we deal with this issue.

How can roads be designed so they are safer for drivers?

Together for Safer Roads’ president, David Braunstein, looks at how technology and insight from the private sector can be used to make the world’s roads safer

Tell us more about Together for Safer Roads

Together for Safer Roads was founded in 2014 to respond to the United Nations’ call to action around road safety. Several small and large corporations got together and formed a non-profit, which is Together for Safer Roads, to help the private sector become more of a contributor to road safety efforts around the world. We also refer to ourselves as a corporate social accelerator, as although the private sector has great intentions, assets, skills, and products, it doesn’t always know how to contribute. We are trying to accelerate corporate efforts in the road safety area by focusing on three key areas – data and insight, technology, and know-how – to help achieve vision zero. Road fatality data is either increasing or plateauing around the world. Why do you think this is? I believe one of the key issues is that the wrong things are being measured. Deaths and injuries are looked at in the past. We need to move toward looking forward at leading indicators. We have done a lot of work around near-miss analytics, for example. There is a lot of evidence that near-miss data can act as a precursor to road safety.

Secondly, we need to make the consequences of crashes far less catastrophic. This means redesigning roads, so they are safer to travel on and implementing things like intelligent speedassist on every vehicle. Safety needs to be engineered into the roads from the outset, rather than it being an afterthought. Having retail, public transit, and high-speed roadways right next to each other, for example, is a formula for disaster. In such locations we have witnessed people dashing across the road to try and catch a bus, because they didn’t know when the next one would arrive as the timetables can be unreliable. Data sharing between 40% authorities can help solve this. If people know exactly when a bus is going to arrive, they The proportion of drivers who can manage their time better admit to using their phone at and cross the road safely. least once a day while driving. At an average of 1min 52secs Real time traffic information needs to be shared with transit authorities so they use per hour, this is like can share the information driving 1.2 miles blindfolded* with potential users. It’s not always thought of as a safety tool, but real-time information doesn’t just make transport more efficient, it can make it safer, too. How can cameras on vehicles be used to improve road safety? Some companies, such as Mobileye and Ford, are already exploring how cameras on passenger and commercial vehicles can be better used to identify infrastructure shortcomings. I believe there is a big opportunity in this area – if it is done in a privacy appropriate way. These cameras could gather information about where the built environment shortcomings are and share this data with the public sector. Many commercial operators already have dash cams, mainly to monitor drivers, but this footage could be used for the public good to make our roads safer. ■