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Toyota says passenger safety is one of the top priorities

Safety is one of the top priorities at Toyota Motor Corporation and the Japanese auto giant is putting all its efforts to take the safety of vehicles and its passengers to the next level, according to a top official of the company.
A recent study shows that global traffic accident fatalities will increase from 1.42 million people in 2015 to 1.85 million people by 2030.
"Toyota is passionate to enhance the vehicles' safety," Takayuki Yoshitsugu, chief representative for Toyota Middle East & North Africa, told Khaleej Times during an interview.
Talking about Toyota's safety approach, Yoshitsugu said its three-part initiative - people, vehicles & traffic environment.
He mentioned that the company's safety features at every driving stage and all safety features work together to achieve integrated safety.
Toyota sets a higher target on collision safety than regulations to achieve even safer vehicles and it's called 'Global Outstanding Assessment' (GOA). Since 1995 GOA has been introduced beginning with frontal offset crash test.
The company uses dual approach to protect the passengers in a collision because its vehicles have collision safety body structure and occupant restraint equipment, he informed.
He mentioned that impact-absorbing zone absorbs the crash impact and the high-strength cabin will protect passengers.
By combining the occupant restraint system, it weakens the force and protects the passenger. And to lower the risk of injury, Toyota uses the virtual human body model THUMS (Total Human Model for Safety).
Toyota has created a family of virtual reality models called THUMS to help the company's researchers better understand the effect of an impact on the human body and develop more advanced and effective equipment features to keep you safe from harm.
By adding a new crash test - obligue frontal crash test - Toyota has leveled-up passive safety goal to further enhance safety.
The company has also globally introduced Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) to new vehicles from Prius onwards, which realised new collision safety body structure.
Toyota also achieves HV collision safety by protecting passengers from high voltage components with three steps. Layout - place high voltage battery where body-rigidly is high. Isolate - keep high voltage battery underground and high voltage wires are isolated by an insulating coating cover. Block - block high voltage power supply by relay. Although Hybrid vehicles sales have increased, accidents caused by electric shock in crashes have never happened, Yoshitsugu informed. He added that Toyota's vehicle stability control (VSC) supports driving stability on slippery road conditions and prevent skid of front tire and side skid of ?rear tire.
He said that the company has introduced and combined basic safety features in a package to help prevent several different kinds of accidents. These are pre-collision system, automatic high beam, lane departure alert and radar cruise control.
"We started introduction of these safety features from Japan, US and Europe and will continue introduction to Asia and Middle Eastern countries," he explained.
Toyota realised the importance of safety long-time ago when the company joined hands with the Japan government decades ago.
Yoshitsugu mentioned that Japan introduced its first 'Fundamental Traffic Safety Program' in 1971 to maintain road traffic order by protecting pedestrians and enforcing driving regulations on speeding, impaired driving & overloading.
The programme outlines traffic safety measures related to infrastructure, road users and vehicles, he added. Over the years these measures have led to a decrease in traffic fatalities.
Overall efforts are led by the government while industry focuses on improving vehicles and educating road users.
The government measures helped reduced traffic fatalities significantly year on year despite growing number of vehicles in use, he said. In 2015, road traffic deaths decreased to 4,000 compared to nearly 12,000 in 1992, according to official data.
Yoshitsugu mentioned that the company is ready to support governments in the region for traffic safety campaigns.
Traffic accidents in UAE
The UAE government is also concerned about traffic accident deaths and a crackdown on road offenders in the country garnered positive results.
The official data shows that the number of deaths has decreased to 5.99 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015 compared to 6.31 in 2014.
Road accident deaths have decreased by 5.2 per cent in the country during 2015 compared to last year; a decrease of 37 deaths, from 712 in 2014 to 675 deaths in 2015.
- abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com