Title: Man - the weak link in road traffic

Authors: K. Rumar

Addresses: Professor, and Research Director, National Swedish Road & Traffic Research Institute (VTI), Sweden

Abstract: To take effective safety measures to prevent road accidents it is necessary to understand why accidents happen. The road traffic environment makes many unnatural demands an vehicle drivers. When driver performance fails to meet these demands, accidents occur. The failure of traffic system designers to take account of human limitations is often the underlying cause of accidents attributed to human error. By basing the design of the road, the road environment, vehicles, signs, signals and regulations on human performance characteristics and limitations, many human errors could be eliminated. This action would be an effective complementary measure to the more traditional selection and improvement of road users.

Keywords: safety measures; accident prevention; human factors; road traffic system design; driver performance; system demands; information selection; information processing; accident analysis; human error; road accidents; road users.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.1983.061081

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 1983 Vol.4 No.2, pp.195 - 204

Published online: 25 May 2014 *

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