Halving global road fatalities by 2030 - mission impossible?

The United Nations has declared 2021 to 2030 as the new Decade of Action for Road Safety, with the target of reducing the number of road deaths and injuries by 50% globally, by the end of the decade.

Every year the lives of around 1.35 million people across the world are cut short, with 20 to 50 million people suffering non-fatal injuries each year, as a result of road traffic accidents (The World Health Organization).

In the UK specifically, the latest data shows 1,752 road deaths and 153,158 casualties from road traffic accidents, with injuries at the lowest level since 1979 (Department for Transport).

Since the early 1900s, Bosch has been a pioneer in the development of vehicle safety systems. From the invention of the Automotive Lighting System, the electric horn, ABS, and Airbag Control Units, to ESP, Bosch has been leading innovation with other industry partners for more than a 100 years.

To help realise the 50% reduction of road deaths and injuries by 2030, the focus over the next few years will be on the rollout of new vehicle safety technologies, with a focus on protecting vehicle occupants and vulnerable road users including pedestrians and cyclists. This will become mandatory in vehicles sold in Europe from 2022 which the UK will adopt very soon.

An entire spectrum of new or mandatory advanced safety systems are being developed, including driver drowsiness and distraction detection, intelligent speed assistance and lane-keeping systems, advanced emergency braking, pedestrian and cyclist detection. Such technologies should help to reduce the number of vehicle related accidents and fatalities. Additionally connectivity, will play a significant part in preventing accidents through the progressive introduction of intelligence driver assisted systems (iDAS) such as the cloud-based wrong-way driving feature.

At Bosch, as part of the move towards accident-free mobility, we are creating technology that is “Invented for life.” In 2019, Bosch sales of driver assistance systems rose by 12 percent.

Connectivity will progressively play a part in road safety in the immediate future across developed countries, and eventually will be applied across emerging markets too, which will be an important milestone to achieving the goal of halving fatalities and road traffic accidents by 2030.

For example, our cloud-based wrong way driver warning system that detects and warns wrong-way drivers and potentially vulnerable road users is going to market this year. Whilst it may sound simple to have a requirement for more sensors, the system is are very effective with the potential to eliminate the 4,500 wrong way driving accidents happening in the EU alone.

Intelligence sensing, including tyre pressure warning systems, combined with life-saving driver safety systems, all present a promising landscape, and if regulations keep pace will push the market towards an improved safety network to achieve the 2030 goal.

With 1.35 million people road fatalities across the world and the vast majority of these accidents caused by human error, we can and must act to change this.

Digitalisation is a key enabler with connectivity playing a significant part to providing solutions through new advanced safety features, many of which already exist in high-end vehicles. With the UK road death accident rate relatively small as a country, we must keep in mind that the vehicle technologies we take for granted are not available in emerging markets, where 90% of road accidents occur.

I’d like to see the same emphasis and conversations around improving air quality, also implemented across road safety making road safety a national priority and a key part of societal health and wellbeing. It will take a global network of like-minded entities working together in unison covering driver education, road infrastructure, advanced safety systems including connectivity and legislation to achieve a significant reduction in accidents.

We then need to raise the safety level across the board and pave the way for connected and automated mobility of the future. Whilst there is no doubt that it is an ambitious goal to half road deaths and road traffic accidents by 2030, it is not unreasonable, nor is it unreachable.

To mark the start of the new Decade of Action for Road Safety, I joined a discussion examining whether the next 10 years will see a step change in reducing road deaths and injuries. You can watch the full webinar by following the YouTube link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KcKzX27F70

For more information and related articles, read the links below:
Bosch windshield wipers: for a clear view in rainy weather
Safe braking: developing Bosch’s anti-locking braking system ABS
The history of airbag control units
25 years of Bosch ESP