Vehicle Design

Vehicle Engineering and design play a major role in safety of both the occupant and those outside the vehicle in the event of a crash. Vehicle engineering for improve safety can be achieved by modifying a vehicle to help the driver, avoid a crash or in the event of a crash, protect both those inside and outside the car against the injury. Research indicates that vehicle crash protection is a most effective strategy for reducing death and serious injuries in road crashes. According to a WHO report, citing the effectiveness of casualty reduction measures in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1996 found that the greatest contribution to reducing casualties was crash protection improvements to vehicles. These accounted for around 15% of the reduction compared with 11% for drink - drive measures and 6.5% for road safety engineering measures. During the 1990's significant steps have been taken to improve designs of vehicles in developing countries and especially in India. However, more efforts are required on this front for improving design factor for protection of those outside the vehicle i.e. the vulnerable road users as the dominant category of road casualties upto 2020 will continue to be the pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists. The majority of fatally injured pedestrians are hit by the fronts of cars and heavy vehicles. Creating safer fronts, if thus, the key means of improving pedestrian safety. Preliminary investigations have suggested that reduction in injuries could be achieved if the geometry and design of vans, pickup trucks, other trucks and buses were changed.