From http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/16/1026802691123.html
Poor roads, badly designed vehicles and inadequate crash barriers played a deadly role in keeping Victoria's road toll at unacceptably high levels, a road safety conference was told yesterday.
Better law enforcement and high-profile public education campaigns to improve driver behaviour were unlikely to have any significant impact on the number of deaths, the Melbourne conference was told.
What was really needed, according to Monash University accident researchers and engineers, was a massive overhaul of Australian design standards.
"Constant exhortations to drive safely are not the answer," said George Rechnitzer, a senior research fellow and engineer at Monash University Accident Research Centre.
Presenting the Monash study, Mr Rechnitzer said areas in need of urgent attention were vehicle rollover standards, particularly in relation to four-wheel-drives, the design of truck trays to prevent cars from diving beneath them, the fitting of bullbars and crash-barrier design.
Mr Rechnitzer said vehicle design and Victoria's roads did not allow for the inevitability of human error. To achieve Australia's national road safety strategy target of a 40 per cent reduction in the road toll by 2010, engineering design standards had to be tackled, he said.
The study said that four-wheel-drives, which account for about 30 per cent of passenger vehicles, were especially vulnerable to rolling over because of their high centres of gravity.
Video footage shown at the conference demonstrated that four-wheel-drives were easily toppled by ruts on the edges of roads or by sudden changes in direction.
Despite more than one in five road deaths being the result of rollovers, there were no Australian design standards on a vehicle's propensity to roll over, he said.
"If you look at the structure an design of four-wheel-drives, they're totally devoid of any reality in terms of protecting occupants in rollovers," he said.
Results of crash tests between four-wheel-drives and cars showed that four-wheel-drives struck with about four times the force of a car.
Mr Rechnitzer said it was urgent that a rollover test and a star-rating system be introduced.
Also of concern, according to the study, were the unyielding steel structures of bullbars, the front ends of trains, trams and buses and truck trays.
Crashes into truck trays accounted for 14 deaths a year, demonstrating the need for what he called a "vehicle aggressivity" design standard.
Mr Rechnitzer said four out every 10 car occupant deaths resulted from hitting roadside hazards, such as trees and poles. Other hazards included bridge pylons, freeway crossovers and poorly designed barriers.
Crash barriers that were incompatible with car designs could result in a car being impaled by the barrier rails, the study showed.
Monash University Accident Research Centre director Ian Johnston called for radical action to make a short-term impact on the road toll, including slowing urban arterial speed limits to 60 kmh and dropping strip-shopping centre zones to 40 kmh.
Nearly half of Victoria's road fatalities and serious injuries - including pedestrians being hit, vehicles running off the road and intersection crashes - occurred on Melbourne's metropolitan roads, Dr Johnston said.
Sixty per cent of side-impact crashes occurred at intersections, with a fatality risk 2.3 times greater than a frontal crash.
Poor roads, badly designed vehicles and inadequate crash barriers played a deadly role in keeping Victoria's road toll at unacceptably high levels, a road safety conference was told yesterday.
Better law enforcement and high-profile public education campaigns to improve driver behaviour were unlikely to have any significant impact on the number of deaths, the Melbourne conference was told.
What was really needed, according to Monash University accident researchers and engineers, was a massive overhaul of Australian design standards.
"Constant exhortations to drive safely are not the answer," said George Rechnitzer, a senior research fellow and engineer at Monash University Accident Research Centre.
Presenting the Monash study, Mr Rechnitzer said areas in need of urgent attention were vehicle rollover standards, particularly in relation to four-wheel-drives, the design of truck trays to prevent cars from diving beneath them, the fitting of bullbars and crash-barrier design.
Mr Rechnitzer said vehicle design and Victoria's roads did not allow for the inevitability of human error. To achieve Australia's national road safety strategy target of a 40 per cent reduction in the road toll by 2010, engineering design standards had to be tackled, he said.
The study said that four-wheel-drives, which account for about 30 per cent of passenger vehicles, were especially vulnerable to rolling over because of their high centres of gravity.
Video footage shown at the conference demonstrated that four-wheel-drives were easily toppled by ruts on the edges of roads or by sudden changes in direction.
Despite more than one in five road deaths being the result of rollovers, there were no Australian design standards on a vehicle's propensity to roll over, he said.
"If you look at the structure an design of four-wheel-drives, they're totally devoid of any reality in terms of protecting occupants in rollovers," he said.
Results of crash tests between four-wheel-drives and cars showed that four-wheel-drives struck with about four times the force of a car.
Mr Rechnitzer said it was urgent that a rollover test and a star-rating system be introduced.
Also of concern, according to the study, were the unyielding steel structures of bullbars, the front ends of trains, trams and buses and truck trays.
Crashes into truck trays accounted for 14 deaths a year, demonstrating the need for what he called a "vehicle aggressivity" design standard.
Mr Rechnitzer said four out every 10 car occupant deaths resulted from hitting roadside hazards, such as trees and poles. Other hazards included bridge pylons, freeway crossovers and poorly designed barriers.
Crash barriers that were incompatible with car designs could result in a car being impaled by the barrier rails, the study showed.
Monash University Accident Research Centre director Ian Johnston called for radical action to make a short-term impact on the road toll, including slowing urban arterial speed limits to 60 kmh and dropping strip-shopping centre zones to 40 kmh.
Nearly half of Victoria's road fatalities and serious injuries - including pedestrians being hit, vehicles running off the road and intersection crashes - occurred on Melbourne's metropolitan roads, Dr Johnston said.
Sixty per cent of side-impact crashes occurred at intersections, with a fatality risk 2.3 times greater than a frontal crash.
Well, we can't be second, can we? 
