The Safety Priority

Since the introduction of the automobile, 30 million people are estimated to have died in motor vehicle crashes. That's more than the number of soldiers who succumbed during World War I and World War II combined.

Globally, traffic fatalities are considered such an epidemic that the World Health Organization selected road safety as the focus of World Health Day 2004. WHO noted that between 20 million and 50 million people are injured in crashes around the world each year. Road traffic injuries are a leading cause of global death, killing nearly 1.2 million people annually.

In 2007, 41,059 people died in automobile accidents in the United States. Car accidents are the leading causes of death for children (ages 4-18) and adults (ages 21-34).

Even so, the good news is that automobile-caused fatalities are down — slightly. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the number of vehicle fatalities has declined from 42,708 in 2006 and the number of deaths per 100 million miles traveled has decreased from 1.42 to 1.37. This is the fifth consecutive year that passenger car fatalities have decreased.

Education, legislation and changing social mores have contributed to lowering the casualty rate. Nearly 82 percent of the population now uses safety belts. Drunken driving has been reduced. Speed limits have been lowered. And cars today are constructed with sturdier safety cages and more effective crumple zones.

"We've made enormous progress," says Rosemary Shahan, founder of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety. "The Centers for Disease Control has noted that advances in motor vehicle safety rank among this country's top 10 public health achievements of the century."

Eight years into a new century, high-tech solutions are carrying the flag for safety progress. These technologies can mostly be divided into two categories: Crash avoidance and crash protection, or active and passive safety. The primary technologies in both categories include:

• Active head restraints, which move forward upon impact to catch the head and increase neck protection;
• Adaptive cruise control, which uses radar or lidar (laser-based radar) to monitor and regulate the distance between vehicles;
• Advanced airbags, which isolate and protect various body parts and, in some systems, deploy at different depths or velocities depending on the occupant's size and position;
• Advanced seat belt pretensioners, which tense up when a collision is imminent and are sometimes paired with seats that automatically adjust for increased crash protection (conventional pretensioners activate during a collision);
• Electronic stability control, which monitors traction loss and steering angle and automatically applies one or more of the brakes to keep the vehicle on course;
• Lane departure warning systems, which signal a driver when his or her vehicle drifts from its lane;
• Telematics, after-crash technology that combines the functions of cellular phones, GPS receivers and 911 operators; and
• Tire pressure monitoring, which alerts the driver when a tire's pressure is dangerously low.