Peter van der Knaap, Managing Director of The Netherlands’ Institute for Road Safety Research (SWOV), discusses three hot safety topics with Rachel Boagey.
The market for crash prevention technologies is set to become much more competitive in the next few years. Although the sector’s focus is currently on autonomous emergency braking (AEB) – which promises to have the greatest impact on collision numbers to date – there is still a long way to go before this technology can show its full potential.
As Managing Director of the Institute for Road Safety Research (SWOV), Peter van der Knaap has no routine. “Excellent research starts with useful curiosity,” he says. It is this innate passion that brought van der Knaap to SWOV after a career in policy analysis and evaluation research with the Netherlands Court of Audit and the Ministry of Finance. Founded in 1963, SWOV is the centre point for road safety research in the Netherlands. The Institute’s objective is to contribute to and improve all aspects of road safety, including infrastructure, maintenance and technical transport developments.
Safety assessment
According to van der Knaap, the safety goals of European OEMs are a “race to the top”, with manufacturers pushing independent car safety assessments to rank with four or five stars. Although certainly a positive for automotive safety now, in the not too distant future it will become difficult for vehicles to achieve a five star rating without AEB. Another downside is the fact that the rating system may soon start to lose its value, “It’s no use if every car gets the highest score, the incentive to improve safety further is lost, as is information to the car buyers,” says van der Knaap.
But van der Knaap does not believe that creating a new rating above five stars is necessarily a good idea: “Instead of creating a new category, we should continue to push the ambitions for safety further and further. That means we must continue to set higher and higher standards and ever more comprehensive rating schemes for crash-testing cars,” he comments.
Of course communication is important for car manufacturers and consumers alike, so if a model passes a more sophisticated crash test, the OEM should, in van der Knaap’s book, deserve the credit. “A good example is the new Euro NCAP Advanced initiative, a new reward system for advanced safety technologies, complementing Euro NCAP’s existing star rating scheme.”
Euro NCAP introduced its advanced initiative scheme in response to the rapid development of new technologies for which there are currently no independent assessments. By rewarding advanced technologies, the safety organisation is now providing an incentive to car manufacturers to accelerate the standard fitment of important safety equipment across their model ranges.
An important recent addition to Euro NCAP ratings is the aforementioned AEB, but, says van der Knaap, it is just one of many measures needed to improve the safety of our cars and roads. “The next thing that should perhaps be looked at is the way car makers make sure new safety systems will not lead to less alert drivers.”
Global view
Halfway through 2013, Global NCAP chairman Max Mosley wrote to the heads of Renault-Nissan, General Motors and Suzuki, urging them to apply the UN’s minimum crash safety standards to global passenger car production. Despite this, best-selling global brands continue to provide sub-standard safety protection, outside of Europe. In South America, the Renault Clio Mio scored zero stars and zero points, proving unstable in crash tests with an unacceptably high force on the dummies’ heads. The Nissan Tsuru, Suzuki Alto K10 and Chevrolet Agile all also failed to gain any points or stars in testing.
Improvement in car safety across the world is crucial, and van der Knaap expects these requirements to keep developing as the world becomes more interconnected. “People will expect their cars to be up to standard in every part of the world. And that includes places such as South America and Africa,” he states. “Yet there is always a price tag connected to safety, and it is only rational that we also look at local road infrastructure, awareness, training, and education and emergency response systems. Improving road safety depends on all of these elements. We need safe cars on safe roads, driven by responsible drivers. That is vital.”
Autonomous vehicles
Self-driving vehicles have certainly generated a lot of buzz in the automotive industry this past year, and van der Knaap predicts that driverless cars will present many advantages in time saving, cost, the environment, space and, of course, safety. “I predict we will witness the end of cars as we know them before the end of this century,” says van der Knaap. “It is only a logical development.”
Yet without proficient safety measures, there is a bumpy road ahead. The transition period to autonomous cars presents many challenges. Van der Knaap’s main concerns are with the reliability of systems such as M2M technology: “If you are warned 50 times for an unexpected pedestrian through car-to-phone technology, what will that mean for the 51st person that happens to walk around without a cell phone?”
Despite this, van der Knaap believes that autonomous cars will be accepted onto European roads, just like the driverless public transport systems already available in other parts of the world. Before this can become a reality though, van der Knaap suggests that two things are absolutely vital. “First, there must be 100% safety. Research shows that people are less willing to accept risk if they have to surrender themselves to a system or to technology. Paradoxically, we feel safer when we ourselves are behind the steering wheel. Talking about that steering wheel, that is the second thing: we need to get accustomed to cars without steering wheels and gas and brake pedals. You truly have to surrender yourself to the machine.”
Rachel Boagey
