ROAD SAFETY SWITCHES GEARS

The pendulum on road safety from an insurer perspective is swinging back from mechanical design of vehicles to a more holistic view of driving skills and adequacy of road infrastructure, delegates were told at the Insurance Information Centre of Canada’s (IICC) recently held Automotive Insurers & Manufacturers Forum. In addition, the forum’s speakers called for greater cooperation between private sector and government programs in addressing road conditions and implementing provincial driver training standards.

It is time government and industry look beyond car mechanics in their quest for road safety, automobile reviewer and luncheon speaker Jim Kenzie told delegates at the IICC’s Automotive Insurers & Manufacturers forum.

Held in Toronto, the forum represented a broad range of insurance and automotive speakers, the focus of the event being road safety. Kenzie says car manufacturers and government should better the incentives for drivers to enroll in licensed driver training and to continually upgrade their driving knowledge. “A lot of time and money is invested in constructing safer cars, but we don’t spend nearly as much time and money in training and regulating the people that will be driving these cars,” he argues.

Kenzie’s change of focus from car mechanics to other safety variables was continued at an afternoon session entitled “A Visionary Perspective”. Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) vice president Alan Cockman and Wayne Sorenson, vice president at U.S.-based State Farm Insurance, echoed Kenzie’s earlier sentiments that road safety is not exclusively about car mechanics.

Cockman maintains most new cars are equipped with adequate safety technology. SGI, he says, is concerned about old cars still on the road and data identifying the drivers of these vehicles. “Unfortunately, we find the least experienced drivers are driving the oldest, worst cars.”

SGI statistics show that the average car remains on the road for at least ten years, he notes. Given the significant amount of older cars being operated by drivers who are the most accident-prone, Cockman says safety must be instituted through better, safer road infrastructure. The insured public is also demanding the industry and government focus on training, he adds. “There are changing public attitudes towards bad drivers — there is less tolerance. People want better drivers on the roads.” And, in this regard, he suggests insurers can play a lead role in driver education.

Dangerous roads

Sorenson, in his address, appealed to both carmakers and insurers to focus on infrastructural issues. He believes there is a “glaring hole” in North American road infrastructure improvement programs, with insurers often looking at drivers and vehicles when assessing accidents but rarely going further to investigate extraneous influences such as the accident location. “Drivers are always considered at fault, but there are always other factors interacting to create the roadway problem.”

Sorenson showed a series of photographs taken from intersections across the U.S. portraying outdated infrastructure. “Driver training curriculum is continually updated, car mechanics are constantly being upgraded, but roadway infrastructure gets improved once every twenty-five years. Meanwhile, one third of all collisions we handle take place at intersections, areas where good infrastructure play a key role. There is a connection here,” he comments.

Compiling data on every reported vehicle collision throughout the country, Sorenson says insurers are “the great scorekeepers”, and have a responsibility to the public — and to the bottom line — to work with the government to identify and fix bad roads. “We’ve done an awful lot with manufacturers to produce safer cars but we’ve neglected and overlooked an opportunity to work with the authorities to identify and correct dangerous intersections,” he adds.

SUVs dangerous trend

In the morning session, Brian O’Neill, president of U.S.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conceded carmakers are adding safety devices to their vehicles. Still, he notes, the increased production and sales of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) could result in more dangerous roadway accidents. Pointing to a graph indicating accidents by car class, O’Neill says SUVs and pickup trucks account for the highest number fatalities in single vehicle accidents. Vehicles being hit by SUVs are also highly at risk, he notes. “There are more fatalities among drivers where a car has been hit by a SUV compared with any other class.”

This phenomenon does not look to let up soon, O’Neill adds, as more and more manufacturers have slated high SUV production for the coming year. Also, newly produced cars are getting heavier, the latest GM Suburban weighing 5,640 pounds. “When the weight of the vehicle rises, we find the occupant death rate to rise accordingly,” O’Neill notes.