Taking into account the above considerations, in 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed a program called “Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020”, whose overall goal is to stabilize and then reduce the forecast level of road traffic fatalities around the world by 2020 (Figure 2.4). The final document also included an economic support to low and middle income countries in order to achieve the objectives. Figure 2.4: Decade of Action. Objective [9]

The program sets the guidelines to be used by nations in their road safety plans. Specifically, the program is divided in five pillars, which describe the direction that should be followed by nations [9]:
Pillar 1 – Road Safety Management:
• Strengthen institutional capacity …show more content…
An illustrative example about the difference between first cars and modern ones is reported in figure 2.5.
As figure 2.5 shows, old cars did not have mechanisms or systems in order to avoid an accident or protect the occupants and attenuate the impact. This problem has been confronted by new design of cars and it has induced an increment of automobile safety. Depending on the point of view, safety may be classified as active safety and passive safety.

Figure 2.5: Old car vs. modern car [10]

2.2.1 Active safety

Active safety is formed by all systems installed in the vehicle whose purpose is to avoid a collision, or at least, to reduce the probability that it occurs.
It includes [11]:
• DADS (Driver Alertness Detection System): System to prevent crashes caused by fatigue.

• Automatic Braking Systems: To prevent or reduce the severity of collisions.

• Infrared night vision systems: To increase seeing distance beyond headlamp range.

• Adaptive headlamps: Control the direction and range of the headlight beams to light the driver's way through curves and maximize seeing distance without partially blinding other