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Volpe Center Highlights - Fall 2005SafetyDirector's Notes |
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Child Safety and Vehicle Technology Research (NHTSA)Extensive research, development, testing, crash investigation, and data collection and analysis activities form the scientific strength needed to meet the safety goals of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The Volpe Center supports NHTSA in a variety of these activities. Some of this work was presented at the 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles in Washington, D.C., June 6-9, 2005. Held every two years for international vehicle safety experts from government and industry, the conference seeks to reduce motor vehicle fatalities and injuries by addressing safety issues and international cooperation. The U.S. DOT and NHTSA hosted this year's conference. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta welcomed participants and stressed the importance of this opportunity for the international community to come together to reduce traffic fatality rates and referred to "the enormous costs of traffic crashes in terms of human lives and pain and suffering as well as economic productivity and lost opportunities worldwide."
Volpe Center staff co-authored three conference papers with NHTSA colleagues. Two of the papers address child safety research and the third discusses new technologies for pre-crash sensing countermeasures. "Child Safety Research in School Buses" provides an overview of past, present, and near-term school bus research efforts and summarizes safety data for injuries and deaths associated with school bus accidents. It provides reassuring information on the safety records of school buses and describes school bus transportation as one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States. American students are nearly eight times safer riding in a school bus than with their own parents and guardians in cars. The paper also describes NHTSA's role in developing and enforcing safety standards and the continuing vigilance by NHTSA, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the U.S. Congress to ensure that safety measures remain adequate and to investigate potential approaches that could further enhance safety. The paper was written by Ms. Linda B. McCray of NHTSA and Dr. John Brewer of the Volpe Center's Vehicle Crashworthiness Division. "Child Safety in Light Vehicles" provides a status on recent analyses and proposed child safety research efforts. In the last 30 years, the nation has achieved significant gains in child passenger safety. Child restraint systems (child safety seats and booster seats) have saved thousands of children. The paper provides statistics that demonstrate that child safety seats are an effective safety innovation. Even though child restraint systems have proven to be an excellent concept for injury mitigation, Congress directed the Secretary of Transportation to initiate a rulemaking for the purpose of improving the safety of children. NHTSA conducted extensive research and developed several programs to provide better consumer information on child safety restraints and their use. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are currently being upgraded to continue improvements in child safety. This paper was written by Ms. Linda B. McCray of NHTSA and Dr. John Brewer of the Volpe Center's Vehicle Crashworthiness Division.
"Pre-Crash Sensing Countermeasures and Benefits" introduces NHTSA's research plan for developing objective test procedures and estimating safety benefits of pre-crash sensing countermeasures. Vehicle safety could be enhanced and severity of crash injury reduced if occupant protection components such as airbags were deployed more rapidly. Currently, decisions for activation of restraints come from signals from accelerometer sensors. Pre-crash sensing technologies have the potential for providing quicker crash-sensing times and more robust information. This paper also provides preliminary results from a preparatory analysis to review state-of-the-art pre-crash sensing technology and applications, proposes a methodology to estimate their safety benefits, and defines relevant crash problems. This paper was written by Mr. Ron Pack of NHTSA, Mr. Jonathan Koopmann and Dr. Wassim G. Najm of the Volpe Center's Advanced Safety Technology Division, and Dr. Hailing Yu of CASE, LLC (an on-site Volpe Center contractor). Measuring Effectiveness of a Key Motor Carrier Safety Program (FMCSA)An important element of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) safety programs is the Compliance Review, an on-site examination of a motor carrier's records and operations to determine whether the carrier meets the safety fitness standard of the Administration. The FMCSA expects that through education, heightened safety regulation awareness, and the enforcement effects of Compliance Reviews, motor carriers will improve the safety of their commercial vehicle operations and, ultimately, reduce the number and severity of crashes in which they are involved. Thousands of these reviews are conducted each year, accounting for perhaps the single greatest resource-consuming activity of the FMCSA. To measure the effectiveness of Compliance Reviews, FMCSA asked the Volpe Center to develop an analytic model. Previously, there was no way to determine the benefits and effectiveness of these programs. Using the Compliance Review Effectiveness Model, the benefits of the reviews can now be calculated in terms of crashes avoided, lives saved, and injuries avoided. Results for 2002 show that for the 9,172 motor carriers that received Compliance Reviews and were still active 12 months later, there were 1,426 crashes and 1,087 injuries avoided, and 62 lives saved in the immediate 12 months following the reviews. This model provides FMCSA and state safety program managers with a quantitative basis for optimizing the allocation of field safety resources. It also provides FMCSA management with the information it needs to address the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, which obligates federal agencies to measure the effectiveness of their programs as part of the budget cycle process.
A recent study documents the methodology used to develop the Compliance Review Effectiveness Model and presents the results of the implementation of the model for carriers receiving Compliance Reviews in 2002. Ms. Julie Nixon of the Motor Carrier Safety Assessment Division is the project manager. Mr. John Ohman of the Division authored the study report, "FMCSA Safety Program Effectiveness Measurement: Compliance Review Effectiveness Model, Results for Carriers with Compliance Reviews in 2002, May 2005." The full report and a summary of the findings are posted on the FMSCA A&I website at www.ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/ProgramMeasures/PM/PM.asp. |
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