Deaths among cyclists represent a swaggering share of all road fatalities. The most fatal accidents for cyclists are those with buses, LGVs and HGVs. Accidents occurring due to the blind spot of a lorry turning right account to almost a third of all serious cyclist-lorry accidents. To fight this problem, Ealing Council and TfL started working with Safety Shield Systems to adapt the technology that had previously been used by the Ministry of Defence for missile detection to fit any vehicle and feature a number of functions, including the driver warning of potential collisions only with cyclists, pedestrians or motorcyclists, filtering out other inanimate objects to eliminate repetitive and unnecessary alarms. As a result of the trials, the system alerts were recorded and analysed by individual bodies. The study showed that the systems helped to avoid almost 30 serious collisions during 2 trials within a period of 8 months all together. Further to the trials, a Data Capture Telematics System has been developed to answer the need of transport and city authorities for a complete and reliable statistical data set. The system records all anti-collision alerts and their parameters, such as location and time of the pre-collision situation, the type of the collision opponent, the speed of both road users, etc. This information enables traffic planning authorities to make informed decisions on traffic improvements and cycling infrastructure in the potentially dangerous hotspots.
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