1. Road safety issues

Every year, the French national interministerial observatory for road safety (ONISR) publishes accident statistics [24] . This is an important source of information for epidemiological studies on accident rates. It is on the basis of these studies that public authorities, research laboratories and manufacturers decide on the priority actions to be taken to improve road safety. These actions are at several levels: education, training, enforcement and penalties, passive safety and active safety.

• Passive safety covers all devices designed to minimize the consequences of an accident when it cannot be avoided. The best-known are airbags, seatbelt pretensioners and impact energy absorption systems.

• Driver...