Car drivers

"It is mathematically impossible to drive with the idea of maintaining a safe distance and not causing traffic jams". We need to shift to the paradigm of "maintaining inertia," not distance. And how do we teach this? With a video game! (traffic simulator) In smartphone, in Tablet, in Laptop, in PC...

Low driving skills after completing driving school and driving exams. Weak evaluation on examine driving tests. Seasonal challenges, where after a winter period, when one starts to drive motorcycles again, the mind knows but body and muscular memory has forgotten vital survival skills. Motorcycle drivers tend to find themselves in an unexpected situations, where they do not know or do not remember how to survive sudden traffic situations. Especially at higher speeds.

A staggering 1 in 4 road deaths in Ireland in 2023 and 2024 involved young people aged between 16 and 25 years old (RSA, 2023 & 2024). This initiative works with young people to raise their awareness and their understanding of road safety, whilst providing these students with the opportunity to use their own voices to communicate to their peers through reimagining of road safety marketing campaigns.

This initiative works with young people at a crucial stage in their lives- as they become eligible to drive. In 2025, this initiative engaged over 1000 young people, who were early stage, new or learner drivers. This initiative acknowledges that this cohort of young people are most vulnerable on our roads and are not as receptive to the standard marketing around road safety to date.

In an attempt to reduce this disconnect, we are working with 18 to 25 year old students to use their own experience of road safety, and their marketing skills to relate best to their peers through highly curated, highly targeted marketing campaigns.

Austria continues to be an absolute negative example when it comes to speeding offences. The effects of speeding and excessive speed on road safety can be clearly seen in the accident statistics: Inappropriate speed was the main cause of more than a quarter of all fatal accidents between 2017 and 2021. Particularly high speeding offences have an enormous impact on the risk of accidents and the severity of injuries. Speeding drivers are convinced that they have their car under control even at high speeds.

According to the 2023 report from the Spanish General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), run off accidents are the accidents with the highest fatality rates (42% of the total). This figure has seen no improvement in the last five years, but has actually worsened slightly.
With the objective of finding solutions to this serious traffic, social and health problem, and aligned with the EU-supported ‘Vision Zero’ strategy, Metalesa has led pioneering scientific research in cooperation with the University of Valencia.
Using official accident data from police databases, up to 56,607 run off accidents with victims were analysed. One of the conclusions is the need to install approved vehicle restraint systems (passive road safety), while the other main conclusion is that installing them with embedded new Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies may prevent up to 43.5% of all run off accidents (active road safety).
Armed with these results, Metalesa has developed a versatile and innovative technology system, PLUG&META®, that integrates into any road equipment and – through a network of sensors – is able to detect risk scenarios on the road, warn users in real time of hazardous situations and report the data to the competent authorities.
PLUG&META® allows any existing passive equipment to be transformed into smart and connected ones. This is what we call “Active Road Safety for infrastructure”. It is easy to install, affordable, and versatile enough to be incorporated into any road system equipment. It prevents run off accidents by identifying risks in real time and signalling them in order to alert road users. Some of the main risks that can be detected and warned about include:
- Crashes against the equipment
- Problematic time zone
- Limited or reduced visibility
- Risk of ice on the carriageway
- Strong gusts of winds
- Presence of cyclists, pedestrian or animals on the road
- Excessive speeds
- Nearby traffic jams
- Roadworks
- Tight or dangerous bends
- Coordination with traffic lights

All data and control of the different uses and configurations of the technology is via the PLUG&META® TRACE platform. This management platform allows municipal or road administrators to monitor the different smart infrastructures from anywhere thanks to its remote connection.
Through the platform, administrators can check the correct functioning of each device, the road safety alerts that have been registered, the signalling method for each risk scenario, the road safety statistics generated by the smart infrastructures, user and role management and alert validation, among other options. It is a responsive platform, which can be used remotely on any device with an internet connection.
It also allows integration with other third-party management platforms already used in the administrations.
The technological system described and proposed for the award is totally innovative worldwide for its ability to integrate (in a simple, effective and economical way) all these features in a single device at the same time, simply using a plug&play connection for the sensors, those that each administration needs in each scenario.
With this solution, any road administration, and society in general, would have a wide and varied network of equipment available that can ensure the safety of users autonomously and in real time, signalling only those situations that pose a potential risk.
Roads therefore become a safer, dynamic, interactive, protected environment, which will contribute to reducing the number of road accidents.
In summary, the innovative system described above is composed of two well-structured and coherent axes: scientific-technical research on run off traffic accidents + innovative and patented digital technology that provides the infrastructure with Active (preventive) Road Safety. This is an important step in the roadmap towards Smart Roads, facilitating modal coexistence between users, and contributing to reducing the likelihood of run off accidents, which, as previously mentioned, is one of the most serious problems for road safety, as it is the type of accident that causes the most victims each year in Spain and Europe.

Analysis of available sight distance (ASD) and its comparison with the required, passing(overtaking) or any other type of sight distance, is a key activity for adequate road designing, speed management, road safety inspection and road maintenance. Obligations related to this activity arise from road design norms and manuals. However, in the engineering practice so far, the analysis of available sight distance was either inadequately treated or completely omitted. The reason for such a thing lies in the fact that there were no appropriate tools for effective and safe measuring of ASD.

Searching for solution, we at ''Panpro Team'' d.o.o. have developed innovative software for measuring of available sight distance based on analysis of virtual driver view moving through the cloud of points, recorded by modern mobile laser(lidar's) equipment.