According to the latest UDV report concerning accidents, 80 percent of them could have been prevented due to security systems.
For about three years, the UDV organization belonging to the Association of German Insurance Companies (GDV) whose main task is to analyze accidents, has been conducting research on road accidents involving trucks. UDV’s conclusions are clear.
Many of these accidents could have been avoided or alleviated by the technologies available on the market’, Siegfried Brockmann, the research director, stated in the „Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”.
The results of the report aroused many emotions and criticism in the German press. „Mitteldeutsche Zeitung” writes about „deadly recklessness on highways”, and „Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” about drivers who „take fatal accidents into account” (the heading „deadly” was eventually removed from the headline).
In the report, analysts distinguished three road situations, the effects of which are the most serious.
1. Trucks hit cars stuck in a traffic jam
Only in North Rhine-Westphalia, every year there are up to 300 accidents caused by driving a truck into cars stuck in traffic jams. Many of them ended tragically, other resulted in serious injuries. UDV research has shown that this type of event constitutes about 25 percent of all serious accidents involving trucks and 30 percent of road events with fatal consequences.
The analysts also stated that in such situations the driver usually wasn’t braking at all, or tried to brake too late.
We need to significantly increase the efficiency of emergency braking systems’, Brockman announced in a Cologne newspaper.
Emergency braking assistant has been mandatory for new vehicles since 2015. According to UDV, one quarter of German trucks are equipped with such a system. He warns the driver when he is moving too close to the vehicle in front of him and automatically brakes the truck by 10 km/h. According to the regulations that will come into force next year, the systems will reduce the speed by 20 km/h.
Why do you still have so many accidents despite the use of this technology? Because the emergency braking system can be turned off and drivers do it very often. According to „Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”, truckers do it deliberately ‚and they take fatal accidents into account’. Specialists from UDV want the system to reactivate 30 seconds after the system is turned off, e.g. after the overtaking time. In addition, in their opinion, the technology still needs to be refined – ‚it should detect an obstacle on time and stop the truck’, the experts say.
2. Truck drivers do not notice cyclists
About 60 percent of accidents involving trucks and cyclists could be avoided if each truck were equipped with a traffic assistant to monitor the so-called dead point. Experts suggest as well that this technology should also be introduced in trucks dedicated to the construction industry and waste management, which cause more than half of the accidents involving cyclists. As a temporary solution, lorries would have to be equipped with a camera system.
3. Passenger cars and buses hitting trucks
The UDV experts have found during their research that fatigue, distraction and too little space between vehicles are the causes of many accidents in which passenger cars and buses hit trucks. The consequences of these events are often serious because the crumple zone and the airbag of the vehicle hitting the truck from the back are not sufficient to protect the driver. The UDV demands the introduction of mandatory braking assistants for passenger and delivery vehicles.
Do you think that the introduction of compulsory driving assistants would actually reduce the number of accidents?
Photo source: Twitter.com/FFWalldorf