Prospects of scientific research in the field of active and passive safety of vehicles

Road traffic injuries cause colossal socio-economic damage to the society as a whole and irreplaceable losses for injured persons and their relatives. Huge amount of road and transport accidents are caused by human error. The paper studies statistics of road accident rate and influence of human factor on safety. In connection with revealed direct dependence of accident rate and the severity of its consequences on the driver errors, the evolutional path from vehicles without automation of any functions to entirely autonomous vehicles is considered in the paper. In continuation of the dynamic evolution of vehicles, the perspectives for the development of active and passive safety of vehicles are proposed. Reducing the need for full or partial control of a car by the driver provides ample opportunities for people with disabilities to use them, which is an additional incentive to the development of autonomous vehicles. Due to the existing difficulties caused by the unavailability of either road users or legislative or regulatory authorities for switching to autonomous vehicles, there may be scientific and related problems in their implementation in the Russian transport system