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Similarly the costs to society of encompassing automobile
use, which may include those of: maintaining roads, land
use, pollution, public health, health care, and of disposing
of the vehicle at the end of its life, can be balanced
against the value of the benefits to society that automobile
use generates. The societal benefits may include: economy
benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of automobile
production and maintenance, transportation provision,
society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel
opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax
opportunities. The ability for humans to move flexibly from
place to place has far reaching implications for the nature
of societies.
Economy
benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of automobile
production and maintenance, transportation provision,
society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel
opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax
opportunities.There have also been limited efforts to use
heads up displays and thermal imaging technologies similar
to those used in military aircraft to provide the driver
with a better view of the road at night. |
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Conceptually, the clearest type of harm in a road-traffic
crash is death – or a fatality. However, the definition of a
road-traffic fatality is far more complicated than a casual
thought might indicate, and involves many essentially
arbitrary criteria. In the United States, for example, the
definition used in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System
FARS run by the NHTSA is a person who dies within 30 days of
a crash on a US public road involving a vehicle with an
engine, the death being the result of the crash. In America
therefore, if a driver has a non-fatal heart attack that
leads to a road-traffic crash that causes death, that is a
road-traffic fatality.
However, if the heart
attack causes death prior to the crash, then that is not a
road-traffic fatalitySignificant reductions in death and
injury have come from the addition of Safety belts and laws
in many countries to require vehicle occupants to wear them.
Airbags and specialised child restraint systems have
improved on that. Structural changes such as side-impact
protection bars in the doors and side panels of the car
mitigate the effect of impacts to the side of the vehicle.
Many cars now include radar or sonar detectors mounted to
the rear of the car to warn the driver if he or she is about
to reverse into an obstacle or a pedestrian. Some vehicle
manufacturers are producing cars with devices that also
measure the proximity to obstacles and other vehicles in
front of the car and are using these to apply the brakes
when a collision is inevitable. There have also been limited
efforts to use heads up displays and thermal imaging
technologies similar to those used in military aircraft to
provide the driver with a better view of the road at night. |
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