Death-defying designs for car safetyCar crumple zones and airbags – designed to absorb crash energy – are contributing to a lower road toll.
Key text
Key textMedia reports might make you think that car and car parts manufacturers are a road user’s worst enemy. For example, a leading manufacturer in the United States has voluntarily recalled millions of its tyres because of possible safety risks, and a major car-maker in Japan has admitted misleading the government – and the ordinary citizen – for decades over customer complaints about defects that could have cost lives.Such reports shouldn’t mask the fact that our roads are safer now than since the earliest days of the automobile (Box 1: Declining road toll). This welcome turnaround is due to a number of factors, including an improved road system, which makes it easier to drive safely, and random breath-testing, which helps keep drunk drivers off the road. A third factor – despite recent bungles – is an increase in car safety.
Safer cars
Cars have become safer partly because they are now stronger where it counts. To protect occupants from a direct impact, the passenger compartment should keep its shape in a crash. The Australian Design Rules, which set out design standards for vehicle safety (and emissions), specify such things as strength and stiffness requirements for side-doors to help protect occupants in a side impact; collapsible steering columns to minimise the risk of crushing or piercing injuries from a frontal impact; anti-burst door locks; and padding on instrument panels.
Strategic weaknesses
But ‘weakness’ can also be a strength. The fronts of many cars are now manufactured with ‘crumple zones’ designed to absorb as much of the crash energy as possible in frontal and rear impacts. In effect, crumple zones act like the cardboard boxes used in movie stunts to break a fall. As the stuntman falls he gains kinetic energy; if he was to hit solid ground, most of that energy would be absorbed by his body in a very short time, with possibly fatal consequences. However, a well-designed stunt will ensure that the stuntman lands on a stack of cardboard boxes; the impact energy will then be used to collapse the boxes instead of to damage the stuntman. Similarly, the purpose of car crumple zones is to minimise the amount of crash energy transferred to passengers when a vehicle collides with a solid object.
The heroic seatbelt
There are other reasons for the increase in car safety. It is no coincidence that the decline in Australian road deaths commenced in earnest in the years following the introduction by 1973 of laws in all Australian states and territories making it compulsory to wear seatbelts. In fact, car accident researchers in Australia estimate that seatbelts reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat occupants by 45 per cent and the risk of serious injury by 50 per cent. The United States National Highway Safety Administration reports that 3 out of every 5 people killed in vehicle accidents in the US – where seatbelt use is much lower than in Australia – would have survived their injuries had they been strapped in. Why seatbelts are effective Stopping suddenly imposes a great deal of force on all objects in the vehicle. What the seatbelt does is distribute that force to the some of the strongest parts of the human anatomy – the chest and pelvis. Crash survivors will often have seatbelt-induced ‘burns’ and bruises in these areas – although this is far preferable to concentrating such forces on the head or at a puncture point in the chest or abdomen. Without a seatbelt, the occupant will continue to move forward in a frontal impact until brought to a stop by an object such as a windscreen, steering wheel, dashboard or front seat. In the most serious accidents, the seatbelt may cause internal injuries, while unrestrained occupants will probably be killed instantly. Seatbelts play other safety roles. Unbuckled occupants become missiles that cause injury to other occupants should they collide with them. Being thrown from the car is usually equally calamitous; in a rollover, an unrestrained occupant who is thrown out of the car is likely to be crushed. In a frontal impact, occupants propelled from the car will be injured both by passage through the windscreen and on impact with the ground or other solid object.
Airbags
Airbags are a more recent addition to the armoury against road trauma. Most commonly, these are located in the centre of the steering wheel and above the glovebox on the passenger side. They are designed to activate almost instantaneously on impact to form a cushion as the head and chest of the driver or passenger flex forward. According to the Australian Government Department of Transport and Regional Services, this is what happens when an airbag deploys in a crash:
Like the seatbelt, airbags are widely credited with saving lives – US statistics suggest that the risk of fatality in a frontal impact is reduced by about 30 per cent by the deployment of an airbag. Crash tests in Australia indicate that the risk of serious head injury is reduced by 50 per cent or more in most popular makes of family-sized car. Airbag hazard? An airbag is designed to be fully inflated by the time the occupant’s head makes contact with it. Anything else would be dangerous: a collision between a head, moving at high velocity in one direction, and the bag, moving at a similar speed in the other, could be fatal. And accidents do happen – airbags have been implicated in some deaths in the United States. Since car occupants there are less inclined to wear seatbelts, the airbags are designed to inflate more quickly – and thus with more force – than those used in Australia. Australian researchers have found no evidence of death or injury caused by airbag deployment in over 100 investigated cases. Airbags can be dangerous to children and small adults – even when they are restrained by adult seatbelts – if they sit too close to the airbag or are not seated correctly when the airbag inflates . Moreover, rearward facing ‘cradle’ or capsule-type infant restraints should never be placed in a front passenger seat that is fitted with an airbag. In the event of a crash, the baby's head would be within the ‘strike’ zone of the airbag and the impact could lead to fatal head injuries. All occupants of cars with fitted airbags need to be aware of the potential danger and ensure they are seated correctly. In Australia, children and infants are more often buckled into the rear seat, which is much safer. Despite the potential hazard, airbags have proved both effective and popular. Some makes and models of cars now have side airbags to help prevent injury to the head and shoulders caused by side impacts –
which account for about one-quarter of all crash injuries and 28 per cent of deaths.
Anti-lock brakes
The safety features discussed so far are designed to protect car occupants in the event of a crash. The purpose of an anti-lock braking system (ABS), on the other hand, is to avoid the crash in the first place. It helps do this partly by reducing stopping distances; in other words, ABS will stop a car more quickly than will conventional brakes. As the name implies, ABS is designed to stop brakes from ‘locking’ – which is when the wheels stop rotating and the tyres start skidding. By preventing locking, ABS reduces the loss of traction in a stopping emergency and increases the driver's ability to steer the car. The system works simply enough. Sensors located on each wheel are monitored by a computer called a controller. Just before the wheel locks it will experience a rapid deceleration, or loss of speed. This is noted by the controller, which opens a valve to release pressure on the brake, thus allowing the wheel to keep moving. The pressure is then quickly reapplied (otherwise the car wouldn’t be brought to a stop) but eased whenever the wheel is about to lock. In this way, the wheel is brought to a stop without ever having locked. The driver applying the brakes in an emergency will feel a pulsing in the brake pedal, which is the result of the alternate increasing and decreasing of pressure on the brakes by the controller.
Expect more safety gains
The strategic strengths and weaknesses that manufacturers are now building into their cars, along with safety devices such as the seatbelt, airbag and ABS, are the result of scientific and technological innovation, as well as considerable investment by car-makers. They are making cars safer and we can look forward to more improvements in the future. For example, 'smart' airbags and seatbelts that adjust the rate of inflation of the bag or tension on the belt according to the weight of the person are becoming available, and Volvo has recently developed a seat designed to reduce whiplash in rear-end collisions. But safety devices do not offer a foolproof guarantee: drivers should be responsible for monitoring the safety of their cars and their behaviour behind the wheel. Related Nova topic:
But in the last few decades something rather strange has been happening. Although the number of vehicles on Australian roads has continued to rise, road deaths have declined dramatically. In 2007, for example, 1616 people died, less than half the number in 1970, despite there being more than double the number of vehicles on the road. A few more numbers will reinforce the point:
Related sites
Australasian Science August 2007, pages 24-26 The future of cars (by Stephen Luntz) Looks at the future of telematic devices in cars.
About the House March 2006, pages 41-42 And still they are dying Looks at the government’s attempts to curb the road toll.
Materials World October 2006, pages 32-33 Lights, camera, action (by Nick Osborne) Investigates the use of high-speed video for impact testing.
New Scientist A collection of articles on cars and motoring is available. 18 April 2009, pages 18-19 5 May 2007, pages 50-51 The human crash test dummy (by Justin Mullins) An interview with Rusty Haight, the human crash test dummy.
20 February 2007 Extendable fender could keep smart cars safe (by Tom Simonite) Looks at the use of extendable bumpers by convoys of vehicles to maintain safe distances between cars.
20 January 2007, page 89 Bounce back Looks at what happens to airbag covers when protective airbags are inflated.
9 December 2006, page 21 Avoid airbag injuries, keep kids in the back of the car Looks at the dangers of airbags for children.
9 December 2006, page 29 Cellphone networks could help with road tolls Looks at a method to charge motorists to use roads using mobile phone networks.
28 October 2006, pages 30-31 Driven to distraction by your own vehicle (by Paul Marks) Suggests that the increasing number of on-board warnings and navigation aids for drivers risks doing more harm than good.
28 October 2006, pages 30-31 Driven to distraction by your own vehicle (by Paul Marks) Suggests that the increasing number of on-board warnings and navigation aids for drivers risks doing more harm than good.
10 May 2006 Shape-shifting car will brace for impact (by Tom Simonite) Describes the development of a car that can anticipate a side-on impact and alter its shape to absorb the force of an impact.
26 March 2006, page 30 How to tell a fender bender from a pile-up (by Paul Marks) Looks at the need for automatic crash notification systems to be able to sense the difference between minor and major accidents.
27 August 2005 Stopping the slaughter of innocent pedestrians (by Mick Hamer) Looks at European Union legislation and modifications to cars to prevent the death of pedestrians in accidents.
30 July 2005, pages 44-45 Zero tolerance for road slaughter (by Pelle Neroth) An interview with the director of Sweden's director of traffic safety about steps taken to decrease the road toll in Sweden.
RTD info May 2003, pages 3-12 Road safety: Staying out of harm's way This special issue covers aspects of passenger safety
Scientific American 8 December, pages 58-65 Driving toward crashless cars (by Stephen Ashley) Describes technology to improve the safety of cars.
April 2007, pages 78-79 Steer clear (by Mark Fischetti) Looks at how to prevent vehicles from sliding, veering off the road or even rolling over.
From here you can access information about a variety of vehicle safety issues, including:
Monash University Accident Research Centre, Australia
Road fatality statistics (Australian Government Transport Safety Bureau)
Presents national road toll statistics.
About ANCAP crash tests (National Roads and Motorists' Association, Australia)
Describes the crash tests that are used by the Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).
Teen driving contracts could save lives (The Pulse, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Looks at the possibility of written contracts between teens and parents to help curb fatalities.
How Stuff Works (USA)
Airbags and seatbelts (2Learn, Canada)
Provides a list of websites about the use of airbags and seatbelts.
kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is the energy associated with a moving object (energy of motion). For more information see Energy basics (Box 3 of Nova: Science in the news topic, Wind power gathers speed). traction. The amount of forward thrust that a wheel can provide before it slips. It is the product of the weight bearing down on the wheel (generally 25 per cent of the vehicle weight on a level road) and the coefficient of friction, which depends on the nature of the tyre and the surface of the road. Traction helps determine the steepest road a vehicle can climb. weight. The downward force of gravity on an object.
External sites are not endorsed by the Australian Academy of Science. Page updated July 2009. The Australian Foundation for Science is also a supporter of Nova.
This topic is sponsored by NRMA – ACT Road Safety Trust.
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