Sunday, May 29, 2016

Significant And Goals Of Vision Zero

By Daniel Young


Property worth billions is damaged and lives lost due to highway accidents that occur each year. As a result, a global initiative called vision zero was started to achieve road safety. The short form VZ will be used in this writing, although it is not a standard abbreviation. VZ has the key goal of achieving highway systems in which accidents resulting from road traffic are not fatal.

Various aspects of this initiative are governed by many principles. One of the aspects governed is construction of highways. Safety, ethics, mechanisms for change, and responsibility are the four major principles. Human safety is prioritized under the safety principle more than all other goals of road traffic systems.

The responsibility principle emphasizes shared responsibility between regulators and providers of road traffic systems. Under the safety principle, human fallibility must be taken into consideration and the opportunities for error must be minimized. Also, in cases errors occur, the amount of harm done must also be minimized. The mechanism for change emphasizes the need to change in order to achieve the goal of zero fatalities due to traffic accidents.

There are specific speed limits that are suggested by the project towards the achievement of its objectives. The speeds suggested are based on the limits of automobiles and human beings. For instance, human beings have a tolerance of 30 km/h if the car is well designed. Similarly, well designed cars remain safe at 70 km/h for frontal impact and 50 km/h in side impacts.

Pedestrian and vehicular traffic need to be separated in situations where vehicles must move at high speeds. Otherwise, it is advisable to constrain the speeds of all vehicles moving through urban setting to less than 30 km/h. According to recommendations of the initiative, speeds of over 100 km/h may be achieved if the design of the road does not permit side or frontal impact.

The possibility of frontal and side impacts can be prevented in many ways. The first method involves separating opposing traffic through the construction of crash barriers. Also, vulnerable road users and slower vehicles can be prohibited from accessing road sections on which vehicles are required to move at high speeds. Additional methods is limiting access and using grade separation.

There have big differences in the adoption of VZ in different countries. Some states have enforced the initiative on all road systems and areas while others have limited it to specific roads and regions. For example, Edmonton city was the first Canadian city to adopt VZ while other cities adopted it at different times later.

The level of impact experienced from this project is highest in developed states. There has been a significant fall in the number of fatalities. The same is not true in poor countries where adoption has been slow and non-uniform while fatalities rise yearly. Achieving zero fatalities globally is a goal that is still far from recognition, but it is achievable.




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