Question: Do you think you will be able to decrease the amount of car accidents in the UK?

Emma Carter answered on 23 Jun 2010:

There are 3 main ways to address the problem of car accidents:
One is to tighten up legislation like drink-drive limits and speed limits – some of my research could be used to justify fairer and more effective speed restrictions.
The second is to change driver’s attitudes to safety. This is very difficult to do but the TV and poster campaings you may have seen are trying to do this. One of the sadest things I encountered when I was working as a crash investigator was the number of high-speed head-on collisions caused by young male drivers overtaking when it wasn’t safe. There are lots of theories as to why this particular demographic risk theirs and other peoples lives in this way.
The third is the passive and active safety features of vehicles. Active safety means things like brake assist or vehicle skid control where your car can help you avoid having a collision in the first place. Passive safety includes things like seat-blets and airbags which protect passengers from injury in a collision. In my PhD I was looking at the shape of car fronts and how they affect the injury to pedestrians.
I did also write a paper reconstructing an accident between a car and a young girl on a bike – this research could be used for development of both passive and active safety features.