Speed limiters could pave way for fleet crash reduction
THE Government should be more pro-active in fitting proven safety features to its fleet vehicles, thereby paving the way for their widespread adoption by businesses to help reduce work-related road casualties...
That is one of the major conclusions in a report by MPs on the House of Commons Transport Committee, which also calls for fiscal and financial incentives, to encourage employers to use vehicles with additional proven safety features.
The focal point for the MPs’ call are in-vehicle systems that automatically restrict drivers to the speed limit. And backing for the use of intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) devices has also come in a Department for Transport consultation document.
Signal
Vehicles fitted with ISA technology receive a signal detailing the speed limit in any given area. The car can then be restricted to this speed. An alternative version, Voluntary ISA, warns the driver of the speed limit, but does not interfere with the speed of the car.
In its consultation document, ‘Road Safety Compliance’, the Department includes a specific focus on the use of intervention and warning systems to tackle speeding.
The document says: “It is not always easy for even the most responsible driver to comply with the speed limit, because they may not know what it is. There may be some ways in which technology can help with this.
“ISA is an in-vehicle system that ‘knows’ the speed limit and can be used to display the current speed limit to the driver, provide warnings when the vehicle is exceeding the speed limit, or even intervene to keep the vehicle below the speed limit.”
Already, the DfT has published the results of research carried out into ISA by the University of Leeds and MIRA, the results of which confirmed that it has the potential to be an attractive road safety feature for drivers who wish to use it. The Leeds trial also suggested that ISA had the potential to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on the UK’s roads. The Department consultation, published last month, added: “We think that voluntary ISA could usefully be offered to vehicle purchasers as a valuable safety feature. We will be working with motor manufacturers, local authorities, road safety groups and others to consider how future development of ISA technology should be encouraged.”
Scandal
Meanwhile, the MPs in their report, ‘Ending the Scandal of Complacency: Road Safety Beyond 2010’, said the Government had a responsibility to act immediately by including the latest safety technologies on its own fleet.
The report said: “We are disappointed that the Government is reluctant to take a lead on this issue by, for example, requiring the fitting of ISA in its own vehicle fleet. While consumer pressure is important, the suggestion that a significant safety feature can be left to the market leaves open the conclusion that the Government is not taking safety seriously. The Government should take a more proactive approach to determining the safety benefits of new vehicle technologies. It should make clear which ones it believes have most safety benefits and encourage their adoption into the UK vehicle fleet.
“The Government should use the various tools at its disposal, including fiscal and financial incentives, to encourage employers to use vehicles with additional proven safety features. Government departments and agencies should also give a lead in their fleet purchasing decisions. This would help to reduce work-related casualties and speed up the adoption of these features into the wider UK vehicle fleet.”
In September 2007, the influential Government-appointed Commission for Integrated Transport released a detailed report called ‘Transport and Climate Change’ and brought the debate about speed limiters directly to the door of car fleet operators. A further report produced by the CFIT and the Motorists Forum was due to be published as Roadsafe magazine went to press.