Vehicle safety features

Crash simulator: promoting safety through education
Safety can be improved by reducing the chances of a driver making an error, or by designing vehicles to reduce the severity of crashes that do occur. Most industrialized countries have comprehensive requirements and specifications for safety-related vehicle devices, systems, design, and construction. These may include:




* Passenger restraints such as seat belts — often in conjunction with laws requiring their use — and airbags
* Crash avoidance equipment such as lights and reflectors
* Driver assistance systems such as Electronic Stability Control
* Crash survivability design including fire-retardant interior materials, standards for fuel system integrity, and the use of safety glass
* Sobriety detectors: These interlocks prevent the ignition key from working if the driver breathes into one and it detects significant quantities of alcohol. They have been used by some commercial transport companies, or suggested for use with persistent drink-driving offenders on a voluntary basis


Countermeasures directed at drivers

Safety can be improved by methods that encourage safe behavior, or reduce the chances of driver error. Some of these include:

* Compulsory training and licensing, (although this is often a once-off requirement some countries require periodic retests and others will require drivers convicted of offences to undergo certain training and retests before being allowed back on the roads).
* Restrictions on driving while drunk or impaired by drugs.
* Restrictions on mobile phone use while on the move.
* Compulsory insurance to compensate victims.
* Restrictions on commercial vehicle driver hours, and fitting of tachographs.
* Conventional and automated enforcement of traffic laws, including red-light running cameras and photo-radar.

Other road users

Pedestrians and Cyclists are among the most vulnerable road users, and in some countries constitute over half of all road deaths. Interventions aimed at improving safety of non-motorised users:

* segregated facilities such as cycle lanes, underpasses and overbridges
* physical separation of segregated facilities
* pedestrian barriers to prevent pedestrians crossing at junctions
* limiting pedestrian access to highways
* bicycle helmet promotion and compulsion
* traffic awareness campaigns such as the "one false move" campaign documented by Hillman et al.
* pedestrian crossings, which are seen as restricting the number of points at which a road may be crossed and often requiring detours.
* traffic calming and speed humps
* shared space schemes giving ownership of the road space and equal priority to all road users, regardless of mode of use
* reduced urban speed limits
* rigorous speed limit enforcement by automated means such as speed cameras

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