Sunday, May 29, 2016

The Principles Of Vision Zero

By Daniel Young


Property worth billions is damaged and lives lost due to highway accidents that occur each year. As a result, a global initiative called vision zero was started to achieve road safety. The short form VZ will be used in this writing, although it is not a standard abbreviation. VZ has the key goal of achieving highway systems in which accidents resulting from road traffic are not fatal.

Various aspects of this initiative are governed by many principles. One of the aspects governed is construction of highways. Safety, ethics, mechanisms for change, and responsibility are the four major principles. Human safety is prioritized under the safety principle more than all other goals of road traffic systems.

The responsibility principle emphasizes shared responsibility between regulators and providers of road traffic systems. Under the safety principle, human fallibility must be taken into consideration and the opportunities for error must be minimized. Also, in cases errors occur, the amount of harm done must also be minimized. The mechanism for change emphasizes the need to change in order to achieve the goal of zero fatalities due to traffic accidents.

As part of the strategy to attain the goals stipulated by the project, limiting of speeds has been suggested in certain areas. Human and vehicular limits are based on to reach the suggested speed limits. For instance, if a person is knocked by a car, they can perfectly withstand the impact if the car is well designed and is moving a speed of less than 30 km/h. Safety of the individual will also still be ensured in frontal and side impacts at speeds less than 70 km/h and 50 km/h, only if the design of the vehicles is good.

If there is need for more speed in areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, it is suggested that pedestrian crossings should be separated from vehicular traffic. Otherwise, vehicles should only travel at speeds less than 30 km/h when moving through urban areas. In areas where the road is designed to prevent any form of frontal or side impacts, the initiative suggests that car can move at speeds above 100 km/h.

The possibility of frontal and side impacts can be prevented in many ways. The first method involves separating opposing traffic through the construction of crash barriers. Also, vulnerable road users and slower vehicles can be prohibited from accessing road sections on which vehicles are required to move at high speeds. Additional methods is limiting access and using grade separation.

There have big differences in the adoption of VZ in different countries. Some states have enforced the initiative on all road systems and areas while others have limited it to specific roads and regions. For example, Edmonton city was the first Canadian city to adopt VZ while other cities adopted it at different times later.

The level of impact experienced from this project is highest in developed states. There has been a significant fall in the number of fatalities. The same is not true in poor countries where adoption has been slow and non-uniform while fatalities rise yearly. Achieving zero fatalities globally is a goal that is still far from recognition, but it is achievable.




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