Safe Vehicles

Although the industry has made major advances in terms of safety and global connectivity of vehicles, there still a lot left to do. The RACC Foundation has focussed on the most vulnerable vehicles which have a larger incidence on the accident rate, such as the motorcycles in large urban settings, like Madrid and Barcelona. The Foundation carried out respective audits with the aim of achieving a progressive improvement of the infrastructures and the mobility services for users of this type of vehicles. It also organised the 21st edition of the Road Safety Forum together with the Barcelona City Council and the PAT, focussing on “Motorcyles and Risk Assessment”.

In 2014 the RACC became an honorary member of the cluster for the advance of technology in motorcycles (Clustermoto) the mission of which is to place the Spanish motorcycle industry at world level.

Special attention has also been placed on the reduction of the accident rate, which involves the introduction of intelligent technologies, such as the autonomous emergency braking in vehicles, a technology that is considered by experts as one of the most significant advances in terms of vehicle safety since the introduction of the safety-belt or the airbag. A demonstration of the benefits of this system was carried out in late 2015 at the RACC.

Child restraint systems were also audited in these two years, with the will to continue giving recommendations and making proposals to improve the safety of the youngest. In this sense, the Foundation developed, on the request of the FIA, an online toolkit (CRS Toolkit) that includes contents and materials to carry out campaigns and studies to favour the use of child restraint systems in vehicles. This toolkit will be available to all automobile clubs from 2016.

In midst 2015 the Foundation presented a study, which was drawn-up together with the Swiss automobile club TCS, about the risks implied by high temperatures inside the vehicles after being exposed to direct sunlight in summer.

Av. Diagonal, 687
08028 Barcelona
www.fundacionracc.es
ISSN 2013-4371