Zero Fatality?

Via a couple of other sites, I saw a thing today about Volvo’s “Vision 2020” project, which says (among other things)

By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo”. This statement from 2008 clearly formulates a long-term vision to create cars that will not crash. Volvo Cars’ strategy to achieve Vision 2020 includes cooperating with social partners, integrating preventative and protective safety systems into the car and, in particular, to better understands people in traffic situations. Driver behaviour is a contributing factor in over 90 percent of all accidents.

That’s pretty ambitious.

There’s a lot of technology out there making cars safer – ComputerWorld has an interactive view of car safety features in this ‘zero-fatality’ concept as well as a feature about how ‘zero-fatality’ cars are being designed and built.

But zero fatalities? That’s a leap. It might not be the driver (or even the inhabitants of the car at all) that die- but what about pedestrians hit by the car, for example? Sure, there’s stuff there to warn you of their presence, but if you ignore it, will the car slam to a halt anyway? And would that be potentially even more dangerous for other road users?

I still find the concept of driverless cars to be fascinating, the machine-logic necessary and so on, but I think it’s close to an impossible dream. After all, to do it properly would be one hell of an implementation, as (I think) all cars would need to have the auto-driving implemented at the same time. It would be far too complex otherwise, with the potential for auto-driven vehicles in direct conflict with human-driven vehicles.

Maybe that particular change will be driven by the HGV and road-train market – being able to reduce costs and improve efficiency would be paramount.