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A concept for Safe-Driving-Trainings with a focus on risky behavior and safety related attitudes has been evaluated. 519 participants have been tested before and after the training by means of a questionnaire with the topics: technical driving competence, awareness of risks, and propensity for anticipation. A control group (131 subjects) was used to check for the possibility of response artifacts. Three months later, 92 members of the treatment group and 25 members of the control group have been tested again. The results show significant positive changes in driving competence, risk awareness, and safety related attitudes, especially anticipation, due to the training. Compared to the control group the participants have become more risk aware and they regard of risk avoiding behavior as more important. The results show that this concept for Safe-Driving-Trainings has not only short-term but, more importantly, long-term positive effects on the safety-relevant attitudes and cognitions of young drivers.
APT with the mobile load simulator MLS10 towards non-destructive pavement structural analysis
(2019)
In 2014 a research program has been started about non-destructive test methods to evaluate the structure of pavements. This task has been given to two research groups - first research group is led by RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule) and the second by University of Siegen. This paper focuses on the initial findings of the running research program. The assessment of the existing infrastructure and its condition will be one of the main tasks during the next years in order to use the available budget for maintenance accurately and efficiently. Therefore, it is necessary to identify possible damages and examine their effects on the road construction. BASt (Federal Highway Research Institute) is using the Mobile Load Simulator MLS10 for accelerated pavement testing (APT) on different types of pavements. In addition to non-destructive test methods, sensors are applied to measure structural impacts. The overall objective of this research program is to develop a non-destructive test method that allows the calculation of the remaining life time and load cycles of pavements. To simulate realistic wheel loads in a short period of time the MLS10 on German full scale standard pavement constructions has been used. The first pavement test section was loaded with 3 x 10 high 6 50 kN wheel loads while the second, thinner pavement test section was loaded with 3 x 10 high 5 50 kN wheel loads. Both loads are equivalent to the pavement design load. Three different strategies have been used to analyze and monitor structural changes. The innovative measurements have been realized by the two research groups to collect data for their models. The RWTH Aachen collected data with twelve geophones aligned in a row parallel to the wheel path. The geophones measure the entire vertical deflection basin of the pavement surface that exists due to the passing real truck wheels. These measurements were done for different truck speeds and at different transverse distances to the wheel path. The University of Siegen collected data by using acceleration sensors on the surface of the road construction. After recording the data they were integrated into displacement signals and evaluated. Additionally to those measurements BASt used conventional equipment to monitor the pavement structure and surface characteristics. The measurements and evaluation tools used for the innovation program have a high potential to validate APT programs in the future. Based on this research it is possible to start further research activities to push the non-destructive evaluation of pavements structures - not only in APT - into an improved direction.
For more than a decade, ADAC accident researchers have analysed road accidents with severe injuries, recording some 20,000 accidents. An important task in accident research is to determine the causative factors of road accidents. Apart from vehicle engineering and human factors, accident research also focuses on infrastructural and environmental aspects. To find out what accident scenarios are the most common in ADAC accident research and what driver assistance systems can prevent them, our first task was to conduct a detailed accident analysis. Using CarMaker, we performed a realistic simulation of accident scenarios, including crashes, with varying parameters. To begin with, we made an initial selection of driver assistance systems in order to determine those with the greatest accident prevention potential. One important finding of this study is that the safety potential of the individual driver assistance systems can actually be examined. It also turned out that active safety offers even much more potential for development and innovation than passive safety. At the same time, testing becomes more demanding, too, as new systems keep entering the market, many of them differing in functional details. ADAC will continue to test all driver assistance systems as realistically as possible so as to be able to provide advice to car buyers. Therefore, it will be essential to develop and improve test conditions and criteria.
Nowadays airbags are part of the standard equipment in almost all new cars. While airbags are saving an increasing number of people from severe injuries and death in moderate and high speed crashes, they do not completely prevent dashboard injuries. The most common mechanism in dashboard injuries is a posteriorly directed force to the proximal tibia with the knee flexed. This may occur during a motor vehicle frontal impact accident when a knee of the driver or the front-seat passenger strikes the dashboard. The posterior force can be combined with a abducting or rotational force leading to concomitant lateral or posterolateral injury. Car and airbag manufacturers therefore develop special inflatable systems to reduce the impact force in dashboard injuries. Every new inflatable system, however, has to be evaluated in out of position situations in which the system might cause injuries to certain body areas. Therefore, we investigated a new kneebag system in different critical seating positions of post mortem test subjects (PMTS). The tested knee airbag module is a folded airbag (18 litre volume) which is installed below the lower section of the instrument panel of a passenger car. Using four PMTS (2 male, 2 female, age 36"67) the following positions were tested: normal seating position, knee flexed >90 degrees and knee flexed <60 degrees in static deployment tests with direct contact. In addition a dynamic test (48.8kph, AAMA-pulse) was carried out with the PMTS belted in a normal seating position. The inflation phase and the impact of the system on the knee/lower leg were analysed by high speed videos. After the test the lower legs of the PMTS were examined by Xray and autopsy. All soft tissue injuries and bone fractures were recorded. All the tests could be evaluated. Except some superficial skin lesions in the impact area no fracture of the bones around the knee and no knee ligament and tendon injuries were observed. Neither video analysis nor autopsy of the PMTS showed any critical contact injuries caused by the inflation process of the bag. Therefore, it can be concluded that in the tested seating positions which are the most critical for the knee area the knee bag system is safe.
SEEKING is looking for answers regarding electric powered bicycles and their relation to traffic safety issues. Does a cyclist need "E"? Is it as risky as riding a moped or are E-bikes creating conflicts with other cyclists? The project described herein, funded by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, has the aim of seeking answers to these hot topics. The SEEKING-team shows an in-depth investigation of vehicle dynamic sensing, together with subjective feedback of test riders to detect similarities and differences between conventional cycling and E-biking. Following an overview on the international status quo, measurement runs and their analyses are performed to find a set of preventative measures to make (E-)biking safer. A specific focus is the detection of curve handling, stopping and acceleration phases as well as conflict studies on course-based test rides and "real world" tests on cycling paths (naturalistic riding).
New vehicle types are extensively tested to check almost all factors that influence ride and handling. With reference to the Association of German Car Tuners" (VDAT e.V.) valuations, approximately 10% of all cars in Germany are being modified by their owners. 28 % of those modifications" sales are divergent wheel-tire combinations, 13 % are tuning measures on the chassis suspension or wheel spacers. In almost all cases the singular modifications present a general permission for specific vehicles they have been tested in. Combined tuning measures, however, are often checked by just one inspector, following a procedure of mostly subjective assessment criteria. Today, critical attributes are only being observed, in case a vehicle is involved in an accident and the modifications are identified as crash causal factors or as a cofactor on the development of a crash. For the first time, a field study allows a survey of safety affecting chassis modifications. The test layout has to comply with some basic conditions. Different vehicle concepts with a wide margin of modifications are required to get a high transferability of the results. A total amount of more than 150 tested vehicles serves the same purpose. The tests are limited concerning the installation time of measurement techniques and the requirement that no damage, defilement or immoderate wear of the vehicles are accepted by their owners. Due to such factors as well as the driver Ìs acceptance, the vehicles are controlled by its owners instead of robots or test drivers. For keeping down the driver- influence, the lane has narrow boundaries and the driver has to drive in strictly adherence to the given instructions. After gathering all modifications, as well as static and kinematic parameters like the toe and camber angle, dynamic testing of predominantly lateral dynamics is conducted. Besides standardized tests like the ISO 3888-2 (Obstacle Avoidance) or the ISO 14512 (Braking on Surfaces with Split Coefficient of Friction), to test the influence of modified kingpin offsets caused by wheel spacers, some deviant tests are conducted. Those are required due to the demand of objective test results for road tests with vertical induced stimulation of the chassis suspension. Hence, new tests on corner braking with and without vertical stimulation have been developed. The interpretation of data includes thresholds, e.g. the maximum entrance velocity without hitting cones, on the one hand, and the analysis of characteristics of data concerning time and frequency range, "1-second values" and peak response times on the other hand. Besides the thresholds as indicators for the achievable velocities, which are mainly affected by friction coefficients, the vehicle reaction in the course of time characterizes the vehicle reaction in the threshold range and consequently the operational demands on the driver. The field study has started and promises the first long-range analysis of chassis modifications. The results offer a basis for hypothesis and resultant further test layouts for oncoming studies of the identified critical tuning measures.
Established in 1997, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) provides consumers with a safety performance assessment for the majority of the most popular cars in Europe. Thanks to its rigorous crash tests, Euro NCAP has rapidly become an important driver safety improvement to new cars. After ten years of rating vehicles, Euro NCAP felt that a change was necessary to stay in tune with rapidly emerging driver assistance and crash avoidance systems and to respond to shifting priorities in road safety. A new overall rating system was introduced that combines the most important aspects of vehicle safety under a single star rating. The overall rating system has allowed Euro NCAP to continue to push for better fitment and higher performance for vehicles sold on the European market. In the coming years, the safety rating is expected to play an important role in the support of the roll-out of highly automated vehicles.
Today's volumes of traffic require more and more responsibility from each individual road user in their interactions. Those who drive motor vehicles have the singular obligation to minimise the risk of accidents and hence the severity of injuries, particularly with a view to the most vulnerable road users such as motor bikes, bikes and pedestrians. Since responsible and pro-active driving depends first and foremost on the visual information relayed by our eyes and the visual channel this requires good command of the traffic and all-round visibility from our driver's seat. Granted that human error can never be fully excluded, improving visibility around the car is nevertheless an urgent priority. To do so, we need to rate visibility in the most realistic driving situations. Since the existing visibility metrics and methodology are not applicable to real-life driving situations, this study aimed at developing a new visibility rating methodology based on real-life accident scenarios. On the basis of the cases documented by the accident research project, this study analysed criteria indicative of diminishing visibility on the one hand and revealing some peculiarities in connection with the visibility issue on the other. Based on the above, the project set out to develop a rating methodology allowing to assess all-round visibility in various road situations taking into account both driver and road geometries. In this context, the assessment of visibility while turning a corner, crossing an intersection and joining traffic on a major road (priority through route) is of major importance. The first tests have shown that critical situations can be avoided by adapting the relevant geometries and technical solutions and that significant improvements of road safety can be derived therefrom.
The objectives of this paper are the analysis of the accident risk of drivers brain pathologies (Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer- disease, and Parkinson- disease), and the investigation of the impact of driver distraction on the accident risk of patients with brain pathologies, through a driving simulator experiment. The three groups of patients are compared to a healthy group of similar demographics, with no brain pathology. In particular, 125 drivers of more than 55 years old (34 "controls"" and 91 "patients") went through a large driving simulator experimental process, in which incidents were scheduled to occur. They drove in rural and urban areas, in low and high traffic volumes and in three distraction conditions (undistracted driving, conversation with a passenger and conversation through a mobile phone). The statistical analyses indicated several interesting findings; brain pathologies affect significantly accident risk and distraction affects more the groups of patients than the control one.
The current paper reports on the results of a pilot study aiming to investigate the effect of mobile telephone use on the driving performance of 5 amateur and 5 professional drivers. Their driving acuity was tested through a driving simulator. Analysis and interpretation of the results occurred comparing the drivers' driving performance while talking, reading messages and writing a message on the mobile phone (intervention time) with the drivers' driving performance engaged in no activity (control time). The variables affected by the mobile phone were the "steering", the "lane offset" and the "duration of lane offset". Moreover, the drivers involved in a car crash in the last five years appeared to differ from those who were not involved in a crash in both "lane offset" and "following distance". The results of this pilot study will inform the design of a large experimental study on 50 professional and 50 amateur drivers.