Sunday, April 24, 2016

The Meaning And Goals Of Vision Zero

By Linda Wright


Accidents that happen everyday on a global scale result in many deaths and fatal injuries. Accidents have become so rampant that measures are being taken to reduce or alleviate them altogether. Vision zero refers to a multi-national road traffic safety project that is being undertaken with the aim of achieving a highway system that has no serious injuries or fatalities in road traffic. The reason behind the project is that no price should be placed on human life.

The whole project is governed by four main principles. The principles are ethics, responsibility, mechanisms, and safety. Under the principle of ethics, human life must be considered more valuable in comparison to other goals of road traffic systems. Responsibility if the second principle and it maintains that there is shared responsibility between road users and providers and regulators of road traffic systems.

The third principle is concerned with the safety of road users. It states that systems of road traffic must account for human fallibility and minimize chances of errors occurring. Even if the errors occur, the roads should be designed as to minimize the harm inflicted on victims of accidents. The last principle deals with mechanisms for change. Under this principle, the safety of citizens must be guaranteed by regulators and providers. Citizens, road users, and providers and regulators must cooperate and be willing to change to attain safety.

Later on after the project had already commenced, other principles were added to it besides the main four. The additional principles aimed at ensuring that motorists comprehend the full scope of the movement. The first principle states that injuries and deaths due to traffic can be prevented hence none is acceptable. Secondly, mistakes will always be made by people. Therefore, the design of transportation system should ensure that when the mistakes occur, they are not fatal.

Thirdly, human safety must be prioritized in all decision making processes in transportation system. Priority should not be given to any other factor, even cost. Finally, the approach adopted in formulating traffic safety solutions must be holistic in nature.

As part of meeting its goals, the movement suggested some long-term changes in speed limits in different road sections. This determination kept in mind the maximum limits of both automobiles and human beings. For example, the force of impact of a car travelling at 30 km/h is the maximum pedestrian hit that a human being can withstand.

Thus, cars should move at a maximum speed of 30 km/h or less when travelling in areas of possible collision with people. If cars have to move at speeds higher than this limit in populated areas, then a separate road system must be constructed to separate them from pedestrians. In the same way, cars that have good designs can tolerate frontal impact at speeds no more than 70 km/h. Side impact can be tolerated up to a maximum speed of 50 km/h.

Roads whose designs allow no frontal or side impacts to be anticipated can tolerate speeds of more than 100 km/h. The designs of roads like this incorporate crash barriers to separate traffic in opposite directions. Additionally, they have grade separation, prohibitions on vulnerable and slower users, and limited access.




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