Identifying Future Vehicle Safety Priority Areas in Australia for the Light Vehicle Fleet

Formulating priorities for future road safety strategies requires supporting analysis to predict what the future crash population will look like and to assess how the countermeasures either already in place or planned will address the crash problems forecast. This analysis aimed to identify future priority action areas for light vehicle safety by identifying crash types that will not be fully addressed in the future by projected improvements in active and passive safety in the Australian light vehicle fleet. The future crash profile was modelled from 2017 to 2030 using crash data from 5 Australian jurisdictions overlayed with available evidence on vehicle safety feature fitment and effectiveness. The methodology can be applied to larger sets of safety technologies when sufficient evidence and supporting crash data become available. Three future vehicle safety priority areas were identified from the analysis: (i) fatal pedestrian crashes, (ii) single vehicle frontal crashes with objects, and (iii) front-to-front vehicle crashes both at intersections and midblocks, and front-to-side impacts at intersections including straight crossing path and right turn across path crash types. These crash types were projected to be the largest contributors to fatalities by 2030. Projections showed that remaining crash types in 2030 will be poorly addressed by current vehicle safety technologies such as autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning and electronic stability control. Future vehicle safety policy priorities should address these crash types through the development of additional or enhanced vehicle safety technologies and where vehicle safety technology proves inadequate other countermeasures such as road infrastructure treatments and appropriate speed limit setting for high risk environments that address the key crash types remaining in the system.