Connected Car
TTi columnist, independent consultant and human factors expert Professor Nick Reed, discusses the power of language and how simply reclassifying vulnerable road users could lead to transportation safety benefits for all. Anyone with anything more than a passing interest in road safety will be aware of the abbreviation VRU as the shortened form for vulnerable road users. This is troubling as we are all vulnerable road users at some point in our day-to-day lives. Some refer to occupants of enclosed motor vehicles as ‘protected road users’. It seems the answer is to examine why we are choosing to group such road users together and consider whether that is appropriate in the circumstances – and if it is not appropriate then we must face up to the hard work of trying to understand road users, their modal choices, and their behaviors in all of their complexity.