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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
/ | |
Insurance group calls for Amazon, FedEx and others to use more safety | |
tech in delivery vans | |
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN | |
Updated: | |
3:36 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Researchers are pointing to a dangerous element of the booming | |
e-commerce home delivery business in America: vans. | |
About half a million light vans are sold in the United States every | |
year, with many of those going to companies like Amazon and FedEx. Used | |
to deliver packages to people’s front doors all over America, they | |
are also involved in their share of crashes, many of which could be | |
avoided with readily available technologies. | |
Vans like these are involved in an average of about 935,000 | |
police-reported crashes each year, including 98,000 resulting in | |
injuries and 3,600 resulting in deaths, according to research by the | |
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group funded by auto | |
insurers. | |
But there are ways to make these vans safer using technologies that are | |
already widely available on everyday cars and SUVs. | |
Light vans are those with a gross vehicle weight rating of less than | |
10,000 pounds. That means the van itself plus its occupants – | |
including the driver – and all its cargo cannot weigh more than | |
10,000 pounds. Models include the Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster and | |
Mercedes Sprinter. Since they are small and easily maneuverable with | |
lots of cargo space they are commonly used for package delivery. | |
The research suggests a lot of those crashes could be prevented if | |
these vans were equipped with various types of crash prevention | |
technology, some of which is commonly available on passenger cars. | |
Front crash prevention technologies, like automatic emergency braking, | |
could have helped prevent or, at least, mitigated, about a fifth of | |
fatal crashes involving light vans, according to the IIHS. Lane | |
departure prevention technology could have helped prevent or, at least, | |
reduce the seriousness of, about 11% of those fatal crashes. | |
Automatic emergency braking, which applies a vehicle’s brakes | |
automatically if a vehicle in front stops and the driver fails to | |
respond, could stop 77,000 light van crashes each year, the Institute | |
said. Most new passenger vehicles today are already sold with automatic | |
emergency braking thanks to industry-wide agreements but the technology | |
is relatively rare on light vans, according to IIHS. | |
Forward collision warning with brake assist and pedestrian detection is | |
standard on all Ram ProMaster vans, said a spokesman for Stellantis, | |
the company that owns Ram. Many of the features recommended by IIHS, | |
including forward collision warning, automatic braking, blind spot | |
warning, and speed limiting controls, are available on Ford and | |
Mercedes vans, as well, spokespeople for those automakers said. | |
The automakers did not say what percentage of vans sold to customers | |
had optional safety features, though. | |
“Amazon branded delivery vans are equipped with third-party | |
technology that measures and monitors unsafe driving behaviors such as | |
speeding, distraction, and failure to wear a seat belt or obey a road | |
sign,” Amazon said in a statement shared with CNN. “Since we’ve | |
incorporated this technology into our branded vehicles, [delivery] | |
drivers’ collision rates have declined nearly 40%, and from 2022 to | |
2023, it reduced unsafe driving behaviors by 62% in the U.S.” | |
And there’s technology that can crack down on things like speeding, | |
too, which is especially dangerous in a heavily-loaded van. That tech | |
could help prevent 37% of fatal crashes involving delivery vans, the | |
Institute said. | |
Pedestrians, in particular, would benefit. Automatic emergency braking | |
with pedestrian detection, which uses cameras and sensors to detect a | |
person in front of the vehicle and brakes automatically, could prevent | |
1,200 light van crashes with pedestrians each year, the Institute said. | |
Van drivers as well as others would benefit from other sorts of | |
technology, according to IIHS. In more than 60% of crashes and more | |
than half of fatal crashes, the occupant of another vehicle or a | |
pedestrian or cyclist was killed or injured. In the remainder, it was | |
the van driver that suffered. | |
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