Toyota playing it safe

Cars are getting better at protecting their occupants, but there's still some way to go ensuring the safety of pedestrians.

Based on 2010 figures, Japanese pedestrians account for a larger percentage of road casualties than vehicle occupants. Those findings, from Japan's National Police Agency, have prompted Toyota to announce a development program focused on new technology to minimise harm to pedestrians.

Many of the gismos planned for development through the program are concepts already familiar from work done elsewhere. The pop-up bonnet, for instance, was invented by Jaguar and has been taken up by other companies since, including Nissan.

But Toyota is also revisiting technology that it pioneered, including the radar-based active cruise control, for instance, introduced in a formative state with the company's Celsior model in August of 1997. Toyota is now planning to put radar to a slightly different use, in combination with stereo cameras and infra-red technology — to detect pedestrians on the road, in the path of the car. And as a means of deterring pedestrians from stepping out in front of the car in the first place, Toyota has glare-preventing adaptive headlights in the works.

Finally, addressing a frequently underestimated cause of pedestrian casualty, another item on Toyota's pedestrian safety agenda is a system that will monitor the driver for sudden-onset health problems, such as heart attacks. Tell-tale signs of cardio-vascular stress can be detected by Toyota's system through the driver's grasp of the steering wheel. Commercialisation of this technology is the next step, says Toyota.

According to the report by the Japanese police, poor lighting and age also seem to contribute substantially to fatalities on the road. 50.4 per cent of road deaths are people aged 65 or over and 49.3 per cent of deaths occur between nightfall and dawn.

In Australia, where everybody drives and practically no one walks, Toyota is faced with a different problem. The company is engaged in raising awareness of driver safety among its 4700 staff, through a recently introduced campaign named 'The Toyota Safe Driving Program: Looking Out for You'. Participating employees undergo driver training and receive the latest edition of Toyota's Safe Driving Handbook.

"There are almost 5,000 Toyota owned vehicles on Australia's roads and as the nation's number one automotive company, Toyota must lead the community in safe driving behaviour," said Sam Rigopoulos, the company's Fleet Business Manager.

"Toyota Australia launched the Looking Out For You driver safety program in 2008. After some early improvement in accident rates, no further significant reductions have occurred and we want to change this."

Toyota employees, before now, have not been charged an excess for an 'at fault' accident, but the company is now changing its insurance claim process so that drivers are hit with an excess, on a sliding scale, for each subsequent accident. It's a punitive measure, relative to the previous regime, but acts as a disincentive for the Toyota-employed driver in a company car.

Since the fleet manager and his staff are aware of any instance of red-light running and speeding infringements, Rigopoulos can build up a profile of company drivers. This profile be used to set the excess payable for employees at fault in a crash. They will also be docked a fee for processing any and every traffic camera conviction. It all seems as draconian as anything implemented by state governments around the country, but Rigopoulos has the interests of his colleagues at heart.

"We want all employees to arrive home safely every day. By arming employees and their family and friends with the latest information on how to drive safely, combined with the new skills they pick up during driver training, and by placing a cost on unsafe driving behaviour we hope to see a reduction in employee and family injuries and vehicle accidents," he said.

And there's a financial gain for the company too. During the period from 2008 to 2010 Toyota Australia employees were issued with 4900 traffic camera infringement notices — more than one for each staff member, most of whom don't drive company cars.

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