Different methods of transportation in South Africa include roads, railways, airports, and water. Most people in South Africa use informal minibus taxis as their primary mode of transport. BRT, a bus service, has been implemented in some South African cities to provide more formalised and safer public transport services. These systems have been criticised due to their significant capital and operating costs. South Africa has many major ports, including Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth.
Automotive safety is the study and practice of automotive design, construction, equipment and regulation to minimize the occurrence and consequences of traffic collisions involving motor vehicles. Road traffic safety more broadly includes roadway design.
Road traffic safety refers to the methods and measures used to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, vehicle passengers, and passengers of on-road public transport.
Rumble strips are a traffic calming feature to alert inattentive drivers of potential danger, by causing a tactile fuzzy vibration and audible rumbling transmitted through the wheels into the vehicle interior. A rumble strip is applied along the direction of travel following an edgeline or centerline, to alert drivers when they drift from their lane. Rumble strips may also be installed in a series across the direction of travel, to warn drivers of a stop or slowdown ahead, or of an approaching danger spot.
Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) are technologies that assist drivers with the safe operation of a vehicle. Through a human-machine interface, ADAS increase car and road safety. ADAS use automated technology, such as sensors and cameras, to detect nearby obstacles or driver errors, and respond accordingly. ADAS can enable various levels of autonomous driving.
The Ufton Nervet rail crash occurred on 6 November 2004 when a passenger train collided with a stationary car on a level crossing on the Reading–Taunton line near Ufton Nervet, Berkshire, England. The collision derailed the train, and seven people—including the drivers of the train and the car—were killed. An inquest found that all railway personnel and systems were operating correctly, and the crash was caused by the suicide of the car driver.
The 1995 Fox River Grove bus–train collision was a grade crossing collision that killed seven students riding aboard a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, on the morning of October 25, 1995. The school bus, driven by a substitute driver, was stopped at a traffic light with the rearmost portion extending onto a portion of the railroad tracks when it was struck by a Metra Union Pacific Northwest Line train, train 624 en route to Chicago.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire is a bus company, formerly known as Lincolnshire RoadCar, operating bus services throughout Lincolnshire. The company is a division of Stagecoach East Midlands, which is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group.
In May 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that more than 270,000 pedestrians lose their lives on the world’s roads each year, accounting for 22% of the total 1.24 million road traffic deaths. Despite the magnitude of the problem, most attempts at reducing pedestrian deaths had historically focused solely on education and traffic regulation. Since the 1970s, crash engineers have begun to use design principles that have proved successful in protecting car occupants to develop vehicle design concepts that reduce the likelihood of injuries to pedestrians in the event of a car-pedestrian crash, or reduce the likelihood of a car-pedestrian crash in the first place.
Ingoldmells is a coastal village, civil parish and resort in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A52, and 3 miles (5 km) north from the resort town of Skegness.
On 18 November 1993, just after midnight, a minibus was involved in a fatal collision with a maintenance vehicle on the M40 motorway near Warwick, England. The minibus was transporting 14 children home to Worcestershire from a school trip to the Royal Albert Hall in London when it veered into the rear of the motorway maintenance lorry which was stationary on the hard shoulder. Twelve of the children—and their teacher who was driving—died in the crash, which is one of the worst on the British road network. The two survivors sustained minor injuries, as did the people in the motorway maintenance lorry.
A collision avoidance system (CAS), also known as a pre-crash system, forward collision warning system (FCW), or collision mitigation system, is an advanced driver-assistance system designed to prevent or reduce the severity of a collision. In its basic form, a forward collision warning system monitors a vehicle's speed, the speed of the vehicle in front of it, and the distance between the vehicles, so that it can provide a warning to the driver if the vehicles get too close, potentially helping to avoid a crash. Various technologies and sensors that are used include radar (all-weather) and sometimes laser (LIDAR) and cameras to detect an imminent crash. GPS sensors can detect fixed dangers such as approaching stop signs through a location database. Pedestrian detection can also be a feature of these types of systems.
Road traffic collisions generally fall into one of five common types:
A traffic collision, also known as a motor vehicle collision, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other moving or stationary obstruction, such as a tree, pole or building. Traffic collisions often result in injury, disability, death, and property damage as well as financial costs to both society and the individuals involved. Road transport is statistically the most dangerous situation people deal with on a daily basis, but casualty figures from such incidents attract less media attention than other, less frequent types of tragedy. The commonly used term car accident is increasingly falling out of favor with many government departments and organizations, with the Associated Press style guide recommending caution before using the term. Some collisions are intentional vehicle-ramming attacks, staged crashes, vehicular homicide or vehicular suicide.
A roadway departure is a type of incident that occurs when a vehicle leaves the roadway. Such incidents can lead to a single-vehicle collision.
On 22 December 2014 a bin lorry collided with pedestrians in the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland, killing six and injuring fifteen others. The driver of the council-owned vehicle, Harry Clarke, said he had passed out at the wheel. A similar blackout had happened to him in the driving seat of a bus. He had not disclosed that incident on his heavy goods vehicle licence renewal application, despite such self-reporting being mandatory. Clarke was officially told he would not face further prosecution, causing protests from victims' families at the way the case had been handled.
The death of Elaine Herzberg was the first recorded case of a pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car, after a collision that occurred late in the evening of March 18, 2018. Herzberg was pushing a bicycle across a four-lane road in Tempe, Arizona, United States, when she was struck by an Uber test vehicle, which was operating in self-drive mode with a human safety backup driver sitting in the driving seat. Herzberg was taken to the local hospital where she died of her injuries.
