An automated speed control and accident-avoidance system : study area : Ugandan highways

Abstract

Automotive safety has gained an increasing amount of interest from the general public, governments and the car industry. This is more than justified by traffic accident statistics, as each year around 5000 people die due to road traffic accidents in Uganda. This proposal presents a model of cost-effective collision warning system for low budget cars. Rear-end collisions are common accident scenarios and a common cause of these accidents is driver distraction and thus not reacting in time. No vehicle system is a substitute for the most important safety feature in any vehicle the driver. Nowadays, many automobile manufacturers are harnessing innovative technologies to help alert drivers to avoid collisions and reduce the potential impact speed when a collision cannot be avoided. One of those systems is Collision Warning with Automatic Braking where the area in front of the vehicle is continuously monitored with the help of long-range sensor and driver is warned in case of collision and along with brake support for collisions with other vehicles, both moving and stationary. Additionally, if the driver does not intervene in spite of the warning and the possible collision is judged to be unavoidable; brakes are applied automatically to slow down the car. This aims at reducing impact speeds and thus the risk of consequences. Finally, it has been discussed how the benefit of such systems can be judged from real life safety perspective using traffic accident statistics.