LEX KRZYZANOWSKI, CHAIRMAN, Light.Sight.Safety
The Clepa LightSightSafety Initiative, a member of eSafetyAware, presented the latest in-depth safety and accident study by GIDAS at Millbrook during the eSafety Challenge, as well as explaining and demonstrating what Xenon and LED technology could contribute to the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. In addition LightSightSafety demonstrations gave visitors a clear insight into what adaptive lighting (based on Xenon and LED technology) is all about.
LightSightSafety creates more awareness and understanding of the safety, comfort and environmental aspects of good quality car lighting for end users (drivers), automanufacturers and decision-makers. It is a coalition of several lighting companies (Automotive Lighting, Hella, Osram, Philips, Valeo and Visteon) that represent the automotive lighting industry in Europe. These companies have committed themselves to bring new advances in vehicle lighting to market. LightSightSafety dedicates itself to communicate the advantages of good car lighting to the market in order to increase the performance, safety, comfort and environmental benefits of present and future motor vehicles. The Initiative consequently supports the continuous efforts of society to improve road safety and to be more environmentally friendly, for example the reduction of CO2 emissions. Light.Sight.Safety is also working to educate the general public as to how good quality vehicle lighting can greatly enhance its safety and comfort.
As for the eSafety Challenge itself, the good thing from our point of view was that LightSightSafety welcomed a lot of visitors at our booth, but even more rewarding was that those visitors showed a lot of interest in the safety aspects of vehicle lighting related to safety. The best thing, however, was that many visitors asked for reports, brochures and videos about automotive lighting and safety to support them in their own daily work.
The biggest challenge on the stand was to attempt to tell the "safety story of car lighting" to the VIPs during their all-too brief visit to the booth.
One of the delegates made a most telling remarkable remark, saying that car lighting is four safety aspects in one; Safety, Comfort, Reliability (as it’s a mature technology) and Green (less CO2). We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!
The GIDAS research results
GIDAS has accidents resulting in personal damages with all kind of participants gathered on a statistical random procedure-sampling plan. Out of this, a sample a selection of accidents at night-time were looked for and a total number of 762 accidents were found. Then the accident types with an assumed visibility effect were selected. The study had to be focused on cars equipped with halogen headlamps but those that could also be equipped with Xenon headlamps too. Some 54 cases were found and from these 20 cases of the most frequent accident types were selected for a detailed analysis. The accidents were analysed on a case-by-case basis, starting with vehicles equipped with halogen lamps compared with the same situation featuring the same cars equipped with Xenon lamps. The analysis of GIDAS cases shows that 10 of the 20 accidents (with cars equipped with halogen headlamps) could have be avoided if the car had been equipped with Xenon lamps.
A cost benefit analysis according to the EU methodology by the University of Cologne shows that more light (Xenon) is one of the most promising safety devices with a benefit-cost ratio of 3.5. The full GIDAS report can be ordered via krzyzanowski@telenet.be.
www.clepa.be
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