CULTURE BEGINS WITH LANGUAGE.

Traffic Crash

On our website, we use the term "traffic crash" instead of "traffic accident." This is because the word "accident" reinforces the perception that the event is inevitable and unavoidable. However, the vast majority of road incidents are the result of manageable risks such as speed, distraction, fatigue, infrastructure, and vehicle safety. Therefore, just as in World Health Organization and United Nations documents, we prefer the term "road traffic crash": A preventable event, a result that must be analyzed

Safe Speed

Safe speed means more than just adhering to posted legal speed limits. It involves adapting the vehicle's speed to the road geometry, weather and visibility conditions, traffic density, vehicle load, and the presence of nearby pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Under certain conditions, the safe speed may be well below the legal limit. Safe speed is the speed that allows a driver to bring the vehicle to a controlled stop in the face of sudden danger, or to reduce the severity of a crash to a level that protects human life.

Driver Distraction

Driver distraction is any factor that diverts the driver's eyes, hands, or mind away from the road and the driving task. This includes physical activities such as mobile phone use (handheld or hands-free), texting, social media, staring at navigation screens, in-vehicle displays, adjusting music or multimedia settings, chatting within the vehicle, and eating or drinking. Distraction is not caused solely by devices; emotional and mental burdens such as sadness, anger, excessive joy, stress, and family or work problems also reduce the driver's perception and decision-making quality. In short: Even if we appear to be looking at the road, if our mind is not on the road, we are not driving safely.

Fatigue

Fatigue is a condition in which a driver's energy and attention reserves are depleted due to causes such as prolonged physical or mental effort, intense work tempo, stress, or monotonous driving (e.g., driving at a constant speed on a highway for a long time). A fatigued driver may exhibit slowed reflexes, impaired decision-making quality, errors in judgment and assessment, and impatient or aggressive behavior.

Drowsiness

Drowsiness is the state of struggling to stay awake and a tendency to doze off, resulting from the driver failing to get adequate and uninterrupted sleep. It manifests through symptoms such as heavy eyelids, frequent yawning, head nodding, "blank stares," and the inability to remember the last few kilometers driven.

Vulnerable Road User

Vulnerable road users refer to all road users who are not protected by a motor vehicle cabin or passive safety systems; this group includes pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycle and moped riders, scooter users, children, and elderly road users. In the event of a crash, their bodies are at a much higher risk of injury and death compared to vehicle occupants. Placing this group at the center of safe speed, road design, and driver behavior is the foundation of the modern road safety approach.