Safety in Design

5 Make Accidents and Incidents Virtually Impossible

5.1 Introduction

It is frequently possible to make designs that make accidents and incidents virtually impossible. Those designs can replace designs that are vulnerable and cannot stand up against human failure and equipment failure. A good example of this approach can be found in Section 5.2.8. It deals with the presence of toxic components in the air in cabins of airplanes. It is described in this section that a new design is safetywise superior to the conventional design. Several cases with regard to transport are discussed in Section 5.2, whereas cases regarding the society in general are treated in Section 5.3.

5.2 Transport

5.2.1 Bus Accident near Barcelona in 2009

Event

 In the evening of July 30, 2009, a bus having two decks returned from a daytrip to Barcelona in Spain and rode northwestward on highway C‐32 [1, 2]. There were 65 passengers on board, of which 64 having the Dutch nationality and 1 having the German nationality. The passengers were tourists. The driver took the exit Sant Pol de Mar at 23.10 h. The bus could not follow the exit in a bend, rode through terrain, fell over on its left side, and crossed a road leading to the highway. It then broke through a crash barrier. The bus also collided with at least one other car. Six people died in the accident, whereas almost 40 people were injured. The driver was severely injured.

Background of the Accident

 The maximum speed of this bus ...