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| Cars are the main killers of children walking to and from school. Sweden hopes to help companies change that. Photo: Wikipedia |
IN its quest to have zero car-related fatalities, Sweden last week
opened the AstaZero test track, calling it “the world’s first full-scale test
environment for future road safety”.
Researcher at the Chalmers University of Technology, Rayne
Emardson, said cars are the deadliest menace to pupils going to school and
overall fatalities from vehicle crashes are predicted to double to 2,6 million
people a year by 2030 — making vehicle crashes the fifth biggest cause of human
deaths.
To put this in perspective, vehicle crashes are the 19th biggest
cause of human deaths, with malaria at 17th and the number one killer is heart
attack.
Emardson said current overall fatalities from road crashes is at
1,3 million a year, with 20 to 50 million suffering non-fatal injuries from
these crashes, of whom more than half are pedestrians or bystanders. That is why
the AstaZero test centre includes a city area with four districts of buildings
and streets, a high-speed area and a rural road. The scenes include blow-up cars
and dummies of humans and animals.
AstaZero is located outside the city of Borås and is available for
bookings by any research institute, automobile manufacturer or other group that
wishes to use it.
AstaZero is owned by SP, Technical Research Institute of Sweden and
Chalmers University of Technology, and partners and contributors are AB Volvo,
Volvo Car Corporation, Autoliv, Scania, Swedish Transport Administration, Region
Västra Götaland, Vinnova, Tillväxtverket and Test Site Sweden.
Meanwhile in South Africa, railwaysafrica.com reports that
Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said rail has been “widely” identified as the
safest transport mode for SA. Transport plans to spend R51 billion on railway
infrastructure to move commuters from road to rail.
Again.
We hold thumbs maybe this year the department can put in practice what it has been preaching for so long. I mean if Sweden can dream of zero road fatalities, so can we.
