Titan was a family of United States expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. Titan I and Titan II were part of the US Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile fleet until 1987. The space launch vehicle versions contributed the majority of the 368 Titan launches, including all the Project Gemini crewed flights of the mid-1960s. Titan vehicles were also used to lift US military payloads as well as civilian agency intelligence-gathering satellites and to send highly successful interplanetary scientific probes throughout the Solar System.
Traffic calming uses physical design and other measures to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. It has become a tool to combat speeding and other unsafe behaviours of drivers in the neighbourhoods. It aims to encourage safer, more responsible driving and potentially reduce traffic flow. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming, including narrowed roads and speed humps. Such measures are common in Australia and Europe, but less so in North America. Traffic calming is a calque of the German word Verkehrsberuhigung – the term's first published use in English was in 1985 by Carmen Hass-Klau.
A crash test dummy is a full-scale anthropomorphic test device (ATD) that simulates the dimensions, weight proportions and articulation of the human body during a traffic collision. Dummies are used by researchers, automobile and aircraft manufacturers to predict the injuries a person might sustain in a crash. Modern dummies are usually instrumented to record data such as velocity of impact, crushing force, bending, folding, or torque of the body, and deceleration rates during a collision. Some dummies cost over US$400,000.
Automotive safety is the study and practice of 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, horse riders, and passengers of on-road public transport.
A bumper is a structure attached to or integrated with the front and rear ends of a motor vehicle, to absorb impact in a minor collision, ideally minimizing repair costs. Stiff metal bumpers appeared on automobiles as early as 1904 that had a mainly ornamental function. Numerous developments, improvements in materials and technologies, as well as greater focus on functionality for protecting vehicle components and improving safety have changed bumpers over the years. Bumpers ideally minimize height mismatches between vehicles and protect pedestrians from injury. Regulatory measures have been enacted to reduce vehicle repair costs and, more recently, impact on pedestrians.
The European New Car Assessment Programme is a European voluntary car safety performance assessment programme based in Leuven (Belgium) formed in 1996, with the first results released in February 1997. It was originally started by the Transport Research Laboratory for the UK Department for Transport, but later backed by several European governments, as well as by the European Union. Their slogan is "For Safer Cars".
Bradley Kenneth Roberts is the lead singer and guitarist for the Canadian folk-rock band Crash Test Dummies. He sings in the bass-baritone range.
Safety in numbers is the hypothesis that, by being part of a large physical group or mass, an individual is less likely to be the victim of a mishap, accident, attack, or other bad event. Some related theories also argue that mass behaviour can reduce accident risks, such as in traffic safety – in this case, the safety effect creates an actual reduction of danger, rather than just a redistribution over a larger group.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is a U.S. nonprofit organization funded by auto insurance companies, established in 1959 and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It works to reduce the number of motor vehicle traffic collisions, and the rate of injuries and amount of property damage in the crashes that still occur. It carries out research and produces ratings for popular passenger vehicles as well as for certain consumer products such as child car booster seats. It also conducts research on road design and traffic regulations, and has been involved in promoting policy decisions.
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. These involve redesigning the bumper, hood (bonnet), and the windshield and pillar to be energy absorbing (softer) without compromising the structural integrity of the car. With the advent of ADAS since 2005, new pedestrian detection and crash avoidance and mitigation systems offer even greater improvements through active rather than passive protection systems. For example, omniview technology allows a driver to see what is a around the vehicle before moving.
Crashworthiness is the ability of a structure to protect its occupants during an impact. This is commonly tested when investigating the safety of aircraft and vehicles. Depending on the nature of the impact and the vehicle involved, different criteria are used to determine the crashworthiness of the structure. Crashworthiness may be assessed either prospectively, using computer models or experiments, or retrospectively by analyzing crash outcomes. Several criteria are used to assess crashworthiness prospectively, including the deformation patterns of the vehicle structure, the acceleration experienced by the vehicle during an impact, and the probability of injury predicted by human body models. Injury probability is defined using criteria, which are mechanical parameters that correlate with injury risk. A common injury criterion is the Head impact criterion (HIC). Crashworthiness is assessed retrospectively by analyzing injury risk in real-world crashes, often using regression or other statistical techniques to control for the myriad of confounders that are present in crashes.
Harold J. "Bud" Mertz is considered to be the driving force in the creation of the Hybrid III crash test dummy, the standard dummy used today. Working with General Motors in the late 1960s, Mertz designed and built the dummy which is today the only recognized test device in both North America and Europe for restraint devices which protect against frontal collisions.
The VLS-1 was the Brazilian Space Agency's main satellite launch vehicle. The launch vehicle was to be capable of launching satellites into orbit. The launch site was located at the Alcântara Launch Center due to its proximity to the equator.
Dragonlance Legends is a trilogy of fantasy novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, which take place in the Dragonlance setting. This series is the sequel to the Dragonlance Chronicles, and explores the lives of Raistlin and Caramon. The trilogy has two major story arcs:
A traffic collision, also called a motor vehicle collision, car accident, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other 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.
The Head Injury Criterion (HIC) is a measure of the likelihood of head injury arising from an impact. The HIC can be used to assess safety related to vehicles, personal protective gear, and sport equipment.
Drunk walking describes people intoxicated by alcohol walking in public spaces. Whereas there are long standing social stigmas and laws against drunk driving, only more recently have the personal and social dangers of drunk walking become apparent. Pedestrians under the influence of alcohol may be less likely to use crosswalks and more likely to cross against the traffic lights. Alcohol use is connected to more serious injuries with longer hospital stays if a pedestrian is hit by a vehicle.
Charles Adrian Hobbs is a safety expert in vehicle crashworthiness with a background in accident and injury investigation, and analysis.
