Automobile Safety

This textbook provides historical background and design considerations for automobile safety technologies used in cars around the world. Starting with background on the invention of the wheel and ultimately the automobile, this book illustrates how different cultures utilized the wheel and how safety devices lagged behind vehicle production. The design and development of seatbelts and airbags are presented and illustrated. In addition, this book presents the design decisions that must be made in order to protect a wide range of occupants from children, to pregnant occupants, to the elderly population. This also includes modern considerations with distracted drivers and cell phones. Throughout the book, ethical considerations are presented relative to the laws, media, and societal norms around seatbelt use and current technologies.

Upon completion of this textbook, you will accomplish the following:

• Analyze the critical historical development of the wheel and the cultural influences that led to the automobile.
• Examine the history and design of various seatbelt systems and how laws and media affect usage rates.
  Evaluate the history and design of airbag systems and the ethical issues around their implementation.
• Quantify the history and ethics surrounding human volunteer testing to make cars safer.
• Analyze the ethics and effectiveness of naturalistic driving research to identify opportunities for improvements to vehicles and roadway designs.
• Interpret the history of pregnant occupant injuries and compare the cultural, political, and societal implications for safety restraints, specifically for pregnant occupants.
• Evaluate the future design possibilities of autonomous vehicles and the implications to reduce driver distractions.