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Thomas Pumpelly (Email) Tim Maier, Esquire (Email)During 2007, Forty One Thousand, and Fifty Nine (41,059), people were killed in the United States in traffic related accidents. Thousands more were critically, and permanently, injured. Vehicle design, roadways and driver impairment are causal factors. Highway deaths have routinely average in the Forty Thousand (40,000), range during the past decade, even though a multitude of “new” safety features have been touted by the automobile manufacturers.
Development of the Hybrid PT System provides a milestone opportunity to revisit the core nature of surface vehicle design with an eye towards saving thousands of families from the grief of losing their loved ones or living with critical physical and emotional impairments. Other, less important, but significant effects of vehicle accidents are the burden on our medical and emergency resources, property damage and lost time.
The best way to avoid death and injury during automobile accidents is to avoid the accident, altogether. Working with the major automobile manufacturers, a Hybrid PT compliant vehicle, both on and off the Grid System’s, can be made exceptionally safe by mitigating or eliminating the collision force that leads to death or serious injury.
Differential speed is the principal value in predicting automobile and human carnage during traffic accidents. It is the velocity difference between two moving objects or one fixed and one moving object. On a typical two lane roadway, two cars traveling in opposite directions at 55 mph would have a differential speed of 110 mph. A car traveling at 55 mph which runs into a bridge abutment or tree collides with a differential speed of 55 mph. Accident damage, and to some extent, death and injury, can be reasonably predicted based on the mass of the objects closing at various differential speeds and the amount of deformable structure incorporated within a vehicle, and/or in the path of a fixed object. Many high speed racing tracks have flexible safety walls or a series of tires tied together that absorb the impact of an errant car. Guard rails, for example, absorb some differential speed during impact, however, are placed primarily to guide vehicles back into the flow of traffic in the event of control loss in order to minimize differential speed.
Differential speeds of less than one (1), mph have been known to cause death in vehicle accidents. Several automobile manufactures have considered equipping their vehicles with automatic braking systems which will apply brakes when the System determines that differential speed is dangerous given the proximity of one vehicle to another it is following or objects ahead. Many vehicle “cruise control” systems incorporate this feature presently.
The most common highway accident occurs when a typical vehicle operator does not notice, and collides with, a vehicle stopped or decelerating abruptly in front of it. Vehicle manufacturers have been so focused on production costs, fuel mileage and vehicle weight that vehicle safety structures (such “deformable structures” found in race cars), have been sacrificed. The result is often catastrophic deformity of vehicle passenger compartments, particularly in upper rear or upper side impact of sub-compact vehicles. Mass becomes a more deadly factor when a typical personal car is struck by a large truck or bus at high differential speeds.
Vehicles using the Hybrid PT System will travel at Zero (- 0 -), differential speed once coupled in train formation and radar type (infrared), sensors on a Grid vehicle, as well as the computer program controlling the Grid, will recognize high closing rates among Grid vehicles and automatically reduce (or accelerate), speeds of closing vehicles to correct differential speeds prior to coupling.
A (relevant), debris field pertaining to a surface vehicle is an area where matter may be located such as fixed solid objects, blowing or floating objects, dust, pedestrians, water, birds, animals, detached vehicle parts and other vehicles moving at slower speeds, within the plane of travel. The Intelligent Highway System, for example, could not overcome the problems associated with operation in the typical debris field found at surface level along roadways and highways as one vehicle’s collision with debris might result in a domino effect or more significant collision between the first car and any number of vehicles following in close proximity. In order to avoid the effects of a typical surface debris field, the Hybrid PT System will be built on a series of structures well above (minimally 18 feet), a typical roadway surface. Hydroplaning, a potentially deadly hazzard, is fully eliminated as a Grid System hazzard.
While the major automakers have been focused on vehicle mileage at the expense of safety, major racing sanctioning bodies such as NASCAR and INDY CAR have been focusing very clearly on safety. The fact that racing drivers routinely survive 200 plus mph collisions and walk away unharmed tends to indicate that safety and speed may coexist. Racing vehicles and racing safety features are, however, greatly different than any street vehicle built today.
A typical INDY CAR is made with a Carbon Fiber "Tub" or driver compartment. The material, although expensive, is light weight and the resulting chassis is almost impossible to crush during impact at racing speeds. Large structures capable of damaging other cars, and which could separate from a car during an accident are tied to the chassis with supplemental straps or wires. Deformable structures, as much as 12 inches thick, protect the driver on each side of the vehicle. Typical street vehicle structures are mostly pressed, thin metal with occasional metal support beams for internal strength. NASCAR requires the use of “roll cages” which are 2 inch metal tube structures which are welded and cross braced internally to protect the driver from 190 mph impact from any direction. Special fuel system features include automatic closure of fuel tank openings in the event of a roll-over. Halon (an extinguishing chemical), is automatically released to protect from any fire that may erupt.
Although most drivers would not opt to use them in their personal vehicles, helmets, flame retardant driver suits and head and neck protection devices (known as “HANs devices”), keep drivers alive in extreme high speed impact collisions when similar crashes in today’s typical street vehicles almost always result in death or severe injury to the occupants. Something as simple as a supply of compressed emergency air has saved the lives of many racing drivers caught in a smoke filled car, while waiting for emergency help to extract them.
For the most part, our current street vehicles incorporate none of these lifesaving features while continuing, however, to improve entertainment systems, style and power options. There is no substantial protection at head level in any car except for that afforded by flimsy door frames and airbags. A driver who runs, head-on, into an object 3 feet off the ground at 10 mph, such as the rear of a flat-bed truck, has little chance of surviving as the object easily pushes through the minimal windshield supports and into the passenger compartment at head level. Most cars will not sustain a 55 mph roll-over without substantial passenger compartment deformation. While Formula One race cars have developed the capability of reaching 4 g braking deceleration through the use of down force generators (wings and aerodynamic ground effects devices), today’s typical street vehicles may reach only 1 g during panic braking as the manufacturers have found it too expensive to incorporate meaningful aerodynamic devices into their vehicles. Furthermore, most street tires are formulated to achieve Forty Thousand (40,000), mile warranties rather than for traction and control.
A Hybrid PT compliant vehicle will be required to meet standards of protection that are more equivalent to those required of racing vehicles including a Carbon Fiber passenger compartment with direct cross bracing, more substantial windshields which will be installed with fasteners rather than sealer and rubber gaskets. A solid roll structure using a NASCAR style frame will insure that head areas are protected from impact. Doors will be secured using aircraft type securing mechanisms and an emergency evacuation mechanism will be installed. Instead of today’s typical air bags, a complete internal air bag and restraint system will gently deploy fully around all passengers in the event Hybrid PT vehicle recognizes an impending collision. As a Grid compliant vehicle will sense a collision several seconds ahead of the event, the danger of high explosive air bag deployment is eliminated during Grid transit in favor of a slower delivery of inflation pressure. An on-board automatic fire extinguishing system will be mandatory.
Various safety options might include an automatic HANs system which would mechanically deploy around a driver’s head and neck just prior to an impending accident or a wrist ban sensing vital signs with the ability to report serious conditions to the Grid operations center and cause a diversion off the Grid vehicle at the next available exit.
Development of “clean sheet” vehicle design provides the opportunity to incorporate contact avoidance alarms (blind spot alarms), full view rear vision using micro-camera technologies and “heads-up” visual displays on windshields indicating speed, direction of travel and immediate surroundings. Voice annunciators should report any vehicle condition that warrants further investigation or inspection and voice guidance when turn signals are activated. A method of sending an alarm or voice stream from one car to another, indicating that a car is following too closely, or that a dangerous condition exists just ahead, are ideas that could save lives off, the Grid.
While those traveling on the Grid System will, for the most part, not be exposed to high differential speeds and will rarely have a need for these extreme safety innovations, standard street safety will be greatly improved.