What smart cities and vision zero initiatives are getting wrong
Today, car accidents are a tragic, but common part of our cultural experience. Living in a commuter city, you’re likely to pass an accident on the road at least once per week, and chances are you’ve been involved in accidents yourself in your lifetime. If you were lucky, you walked away without a scratch. Of course, that’s not always the outcome.
Cities around the world are working hard to ensure that today’s high accident rates become a thing of the past. With the internet of things, smart mobility technology and smart infrastructure options abounding, the consensus is that a future of zero-fatality, accident-free roads is not only possible, but within our grasp. However, the approach cities are taking to the problem of driver safety may still be too reactive to create the change they’re hoping for.
One key part of these vision zero initiatives is the use of crowdsourced traffic data from mobile phones to identify high-risk intersections and areas where a disproportionate number of accidents and slowdowns occur. This is a major step forward from today’s system, in which risky areas are identified based on emergency response data and police reports (when they’re filed).
However, the idea of reactively responding after accidents have occurred is still decidedly low-tech, no matter how the data is being gathered. Cities change and grow continually, so the safety of the city will be constantly in flux as potential new hazard zones are introduced and retroactively identified. To truly be effective in creating a zero-fatality future, cities need the ability to proactively identify areas where accidents are likely to occur, so they can prevent accidents before they happen by adjusting speed limits, posting warning signage, or even rethinking and reconstructing the infrastructure in certain locations.
What this boils down to is that cities need the ability to measure and stop unsafe driving where it starts – with the drivers. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, upwards of 94% of accidents are caused by human error. The term “human error” may seem vague, but professional drivers and the organizations that employ them actually have a very clear picture of the specific behaviors that comprise safe and unsafe driving.
