Sunday, August 15, 2010

Evidence for Electronic Stability Control (ESC) effectiveness

source: chooseESC
my comments in italic quotes
Literature Review, Effectiveness of Electronic Stability Control
2007, USA
Many studies now have estimated that ESC reduces fatal single-vehicle crashes by between 30 and 50% among cars and 50-70% among SUVs. Furthermore, fatal rollover crashes are estimated to be 70-90% lower with ESC regardless of vehicle type.
The review discusses the methodological differences and examines the findings according to vehicle type, crash type and severity, and road conditions.
(Fegurson S.A., 2007)    pdf (1.8 MB)

This metastudy was sponsored by Robert Bosch - the inventors of ESC. Table 1 has comments on 12 ESC studies.






Proceedings, 13th ITS World Congress and Exhibition
8-12 October 2006, London, UK
Overall the cars with ESC are involved in 3% fewer crashes although the effectiveness is substantially higher under conditions of adverse road friction i.e. 25% reduction on snowy and icy roads. ESC equipped cars are involved in 15% fewer fatal crashes although this reduction represents the combined effect of ESC and passive safety improvements.
The study used the national accident statistics of Great Britain. The crash experience of 8951 cars was analysed and compared to a closely matching set of non-ESC cars using case-control methods.
Download PDF (Thomas P., 20006):  .pdf (79 KB)

These results are often statistically not significant and sometimes its not clear which results are significant and which are not. The graphs should highlight these differences in signficance, but do not. This analysis of GB national accident data has indicated that cars equipped with ESC are involved in 3% fewer crashes overall compared to unequipped cars. This compares to 22% effectiveness in Sweden and 45% in Germany using similar methods. The UK ESC effectiveness results are an order of magnitude lower than those in Germany or Sweden. The report does not explain why there should be such a large difference in the UK, Swedish and German results. The analysis has shown that ESC is most effective under poor road surface conditions such as rain, snow and ice where the effectiveness increases to 25%. The data also indicates that these conditions are relatively rare in Great Britain with only 2% of crashes taking place on snow or icy roads.



Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
Status Report, Vol. 41, No. 5 and News Release
13 June 2006
ESC reduces the risk of fatal multiple-vehicle crashes by 32 percent amd the risk of all single-vehicle crashes by more than 40 percent — fatal ones by 56 percent.
While both cars and SUVs benefit from ESC, the reduction in the risk of single-vehicle crashes was significantly greater for SUVs — 49 percent versus 33 percent for cars. The reduction in fatal single-vehicle crashes wasn't significantly different for SUVs (59 percent) than for cars (53 percent). ESC reduces the risk of fatal single-vehicle rollovers of SUVs by 80 percent, 77 percent for cars. ESC was found to reduce the risk of all kinds of fatal crashes by 43 percent. Losses under collision coverage are about 15 percent lower for vehicles with ESC than for predecessor models without it. However, ESC doesn't have much effect on property damage liability claims or the frequency of injury claims. These findings track police-reported crashes, which show little effect of ESC on the risk of low-severity multiple-vehicle crashes.

Statistical analysis of road accidents and fatalities as well as traffic insurance claims.
Download PDF (IIHS, 2006):  .pdf (313 KB)


Press release. National Agency for Automotive Safety & Victims' Aid (NASVA)
18 February 2005
ESC decreased the accident rate of single-car accidents by about 44% and that of head-on collisions by about 24%; the decrease was higher for more severe accidents; the decrease of single accidents and head-on collisions was higher on wet road conditions (58%) than on dry conditions (20%).
Comparison of data of 1,471 single-car accidents or head-on collisions not caused by drunk driving or drowsy driving involving ten models that were originally designed and shipped without ESC but subsequently became to be equipped with ESC were chosen from the accident data held by the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA) in Japan. Accident numbers were related to the number of such cars in use.
Download PDF (Ohono & Shimura, 2005):  .pdf (83 KB)


International Technical Conference
on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles Conference (ESV)
June 2005
The overall effectiveness of ESC on all injury crashes except for rear end crashes was 16.7 +/- 9.3%, while for serious and fatal crashes the effectiveness was 21.6 +/- 12.8%. The effectiveness for serious and fatal crashes on wet roads was 56.2 +/- 23.5 %. On roads covered with ice and snow, the corresponding effectiveness was 49.2 +/- 30.2 %.
The estimates are based on the assumption that rear end crashes on dry road surfaces are not affected at all by ESC.
Download PDF (Lie, A., Tingvall, C., Krafft, M. & Kullgren, A. , 2005):  .pdf (82 KB)




Vehicle Design and Research Pty Limited for Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW
June 2005
In Australia, ESC is estimated to reduce road fatalities in light vehicles by 29%. Assuming that ESC can prevent 50% of loss-of-control accidents and that an ESC units costs $1,000, ESC is estimated to have a benefit cost ratio of 0.51.
Compilation of ESC safety evaluation results throughout the world.
Download PDF (Paine, M., 2005):  .pdf (848 KB)




Wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisstand zu ESP. 10 Jahre ESP
Berlin, 23 February 2005
In Germany, 100 per cent equipment of all cars with ESP is estimated to reduce the number of accidents with car occupant injuries by about 7 -11 %. The reduction in the car occupant fatalities would be approximately 15 -20 %
The study compiled all available accident studies on ESP effectiveness.
Langwieder, K.,2005



National Highway Traffic Safety Agency, USA

Single vehicle crashes were reduced by 35% in passenger cars and by 67 % in SUV crashes. The study also showed significant or borderline-significant reductions in the multi-vehicle crash rates per 100,000 vehicle years with ESC.
As multi-vehicle crashes we used as the control group and it is possible that multi-vehicle crashes are being reduced by ESC, this means that the true effectiveness of ESC could be higher than estimated for single vehicle crashes.
Download PDF (Dang, J., 2004):  .pdf (61 KB)



Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Arlington, Virginia, USA

ESC reduced single-vehicle crash involvement risk by approximately 41 % and single-vehicle injury crash involvement risk by 41 %. This translates to an estimated 7 % reduction in overall crash involvement risk and a 9 % reduction in overall injury crash involvement risk. Based on all fatal crashes in the United States over 3 years, ESC was found to have reduced single-vehicle fatal crash involvement risk by 56 percent. This translates to an estimated 34 percent reduction in overall fatal crash involvement risk.
The study compared crash involvement rates for otherwise identical vehicle models with and without ESC systems.
Download PDF (Farmer, C., 2004):  fulltext.pdf (79 KB)

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