Vision of injury-free driving
Every 74 seconds, a person is injured in a traffic accident, and every 106 minutes someone dies on the road – in Germany alone. A total of 4,958 people died here last year. Although tragic, this number nevertheless attests to the great progress made in the area of road safety: the numbers have been steadily declining for years, and the sad peak of the year 1970, when there were more than 21,000 casualties – even though there was much less traffic at the time – is now already far back in the past.
“We’re interested in the question of how a crash can be prevented – and if that’s not possible, we want to know how we can improve the chances of surviving it,” says accident expert Andreas Georgi. “By simulating crashes, for example, we try to identify the optimal points in time for triggering the airbags and the seat belt tensioner. In addition, we also want to know how one can judge the type and intensity of an accident from the sensor signals as early as possible, and react accordingly.”
Driving errors cause over ninety percent of all accidents
In the same way as the systems in the car are interlinked, Georgi and his colleagues closely cooperate as part of a tight network, with the specialists of the relevant fields within Bosch: “We get inquiries from all areas of automotive engineering,” says group leader Reiner Marchthaler.
Ultimately, the database provides information such as what accident car was equipped with what driver assistance system – and even whether the driver was actually aware that it was on board. According to Georgi, “many drivers don’t even know what they have in their cars.” And that despite the fact that assistance functions are vitally important: “Around 90 to 95 percent of all accidents are caused by driving errors,” Georgi points out. “That means that if more cars were equipped with automatic distance control, lane assistants, and especially ESP, many lives could be saved.”
“A feeling for the truth behind the data”
It is true, in fact, that the number of casualties in industrial nations has been declining for years. Worldwide, however, around 1.4 million people die in road accidents every year; in the U.S. alone, more than 43,000 people died in 2005, in Brazil about 26,400, and in India almost 100,000.
For Andreas Georgi, these are not just numbers: “We never lose sight of the fact that these statistics represent actual human tragedies. And it is the distressing scenes at accident sites in particular that greatly motivate us in our work.” For this reason, every new employee is sent to the accident site to collect data at least once, “to ensure that they get a feeling for the truth behind the data,” Marchthaler says.
The accident photographs that some researchers have pinned to their wall serve the same purpose. They graphically depict what the work is all about: a significant contribution to make driving still safer. “Our vision is for new systems that will eliminate the risk of injury and accidents while driving,” Marchthaler says, adding: “It’s noble goal at the end of a long road.” It seems the Bosch researchers are well on their way already…
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