Abstract
The development of passive safety of cars has been to a large extent successful, and has led to substantial reductions in the number of killed and seriously injured car occupants. Recent developments, and the fact that older cars are being exchanged for newer models, means that the potential for further improvement is growing. Advance developments in passive safety, including intelligent restraint systems, are also promising.
The passive safety of cars though has some limitations, in that some accidents and accident severities are not possible to handle within the self-protection ability of the car. It has been suggested that this would imply that there is no further need to continue to develop the passive safety of cars. It has even been suggested that the Intelligent Transport System technology would make passive safety less important.
In this paper, it is argued, that the main problem with passive safety (being able to protect from all types of impacts and impact severity) is a matter of the interface between the vehicle, the infrastructure and mobility in terms of vehicle speed. The low compatibility of these three factors is a waste of the potential built into the car of today and tomorrow.
A focus on the interface between mobility, the self-protection of the vehicle and the infrastructure is one of the keys to a safe road transport system; one that is free of serious health losses. Using biomechanical critical load limits on the whole system, instead of only on the car, is a platform for the future redesign of the inherent safety of the system.