The aim is to reduce the number of “near misses”, also known as risky situations. The increase in safety margins will lead to high-risk situations being avoided – which in turn will lead to fewer accidents in general.
Traffic behavior is mainly habitual
Navigating in traffic is an everyday activity for most people, and their behavior is largely controlled by automatic reactions. Automated behavior in itself is not dangerous. It can be anywhere on the scale from high safety margins
to very risky.
Many safety measures in traffic do not achieve their potential because they appeal to conscious decisions. However, the ordinary road user will view traffic primarily as a habitual task and give it little thought.
By using so-called nudging approaches, road users are instead encouraged to make a safe choice without even thinking about it. All options, even the unsafe ones, are still open, so nudging is less intrusive than outright bans.
MeBeSafe goals
The road accident statistics clearly show a number of high-level causal factors that can be summarized in three categories.
MeBeSafe intends to address these risk factors through seven specific objectives:
- Reduce lack of attention
- Prevent excessive speed for the current circumstances
- encourage more road users to focus their attention on potential dangers
- encourage more road users to choose an appropriate speed in potentially dangerous situations
- Help road users to follow a suitable trajectory in potentially dangerous situations
- Raising drivers’ awareness of potential dangers in longitudinal traffic and increasing the distance between vehicles through increased use of adaptive cruise control (ACC)
- encourage tired/sleepy drivers to take a break
MeBeSafe tested and developed 8 soft measures to make traffic safer, including roadside lights, novel markings on cycling surfaces, moving balls and an app that helps truck drivers coach each other.