World Voice for Peace on Roads

What is Soft Car and How It Create Post Speeding Society ?!

2009-05-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

I am now attending Global Meeting of Nongovernmental Organizations
Advocating for Road Safety organized by World Health Organization (WHO) held at Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre - Brussels, Belgium. Today, May 7th, 2009 is the first day of the Meeting and will last two days.

I arrived at Thon Hotel yesterday, met participants from around the world, i.e. Portuguese, Germany, Greek, Italy, US, England, Oman and others, went to dinner, and, by a good introduction of Ms. Brigitte Chaudhry of RoadPeace, who suggested WHO to invite me for the Meeting, I briefly talked about Soft Car. I felt Soft Car interested people. People showed their interest in my book of Post Speeding Society.

I describe what is Soft Car and what is Post Speeding Society here. I hope the participants will leave messages here, even after the Meeting.

* This article is under construction.

An Open Letter to Messrs Obama and Biden

2009-01-11T18:59:00.000-08:00

Edited on Jannuary 13, 2009: Our message to the Obama-Biden Transition Team was sent to their site and to refer to this World Voice site. Please leave your message here or send your mail to oguri@cuc.ac.jp, so that it can be added to this site if you wish. You may, of course, send your message directly to the Transition Team. Please visit the site of Mainichi Daily News on January 10, 2009 which reported this open letter.

To: Mr. Barack Obama & Mr. Joe Biden, President and Vice President Elect, USA
From: Yukio Oguri, Ph.D. in City Planning, Professor, Chiba University of Commerce, Director of Soft Car Project, Honorary member of RoadPeace, Japan
Brigitte Chaudhry, MBE, Founder & President RoadPeace,　President European Federation of Road Traffic Victims, UK
Christer Hydén, Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, Professor in Traffic Safety, Lund University, President of ICTCT, Sweden

*Messages from Individuals of the World Voice for Peace on Roads attached after the letter.

Re: Revival of Car Manufacturing and Rebuilding Car-Road-Growth Model,
Giving the First Priority to the Prevention of Road Traffic Deaths and Injuries
Date: January 12, 2009　

Dear Mr. Obama & Mr. Biden,

We are the voice of people of the world - bereaved families, representatives of road victim and road safety NGOs, transportation and city planners, and citizens of good will, and are writing on their behalf. We have come to be connected by varied networks, one of which was created through the observance of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims , a Day started in 1993 in the UK and observed for a decade in Europe by road victim NGOs, until it was adopted through United Nations Resolution A60 on 26th October 2005 and since when this Day has been commemorated worldwide.

We understand that you now face enormous problems and are at present developing your policies for your presidency.

Among many other plans, we understand that you are seriously considering the revival of car manufacturing to avoid possible job losses and to regain the strength of the American economy.

While mismanagement of auto companies and their failure of producing energy efficient cars are frequently discussed, there is an important issue which lacks attention, namely the outrageous number of victims of car crashes on the world’s roads.

According to the World Report by the WHO and World Bank of 2004, 1.2 million people were killed and 20 to 50 million seriously injured worldwide in 2002. An estimated 35 million people have been killed in car crashes worldwide until now. The dimensions exceed by far those of wars. Mr. Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nation said in his message on World Health Day 2004: “Road safety can prevent needless suffering, but does not happen by chance” .

We learned that family members of both of you were killed and injured in car crashes and would like to send our sincere sympathy.

Many research projects for safe vehicle systems in our network clarify that the excessive power and speeding of cars are the most dominant factors of occurrence of crashes and make the consequence serious, and tell that a reduction of their excessive power and speeding capability is essential for safety. After the revision, cars can still work well, can be better controlled by drivers, can be manufactured cheaper, will consume less energy, and most importantly, will be far less likely to kill or injure people - this will therefore be a positive step forward all round, as it will also stimulate new technologies, create new demand and create new job opportunities.

Thus, we very strongly advise you to give the ‘Big 3’, who are developing their restructuring plans, your guidance to develop cars with effective safety features, especially to install mechanisms for controlling the power and speed of their products.

In the longer run, we should carefully develop systems of identifying drivers and their legitimacy of driving to avoid the criminal use of cars from the security point of view, while safeguarding the value of freedom and privacy of people.

We should realize that the reduction of excessive power and speeding capability of existing cars will enhance the effectiveness of such existing measures for road traffic safety as seatbelts, airbags, and safety education, will support rigid legal enforcement and punishments, will render unnecessary the erection of more traffic signs or construction of more sidewalks and humps, and will augment the expansion of car free areas.

Same arguments can be made on the use of information technologies in transportation, i.e. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). ITS will be effective for the safety of road traffic only when the excessive power and speeding capability are reduced.

We also understand that you are developing very strong energy and environmental policies. However, your concern should not converge to the development of hybrid and electric cars. If you now recognize the importance of the reduction of excessive power and speeding capability, and if you take right action, you will achieve both societal safety and sustainability at one time.

* * *

Car manufacturing and road construction have been the major instruments to achieving economic prosperity in the 20th century, which we may call the Car-Road-Growth-Model. The Car-Road-Growth-Model has been most successfully activated in the United States by an intimate partnership between governments and car manufacturers. Many countries all over the world followed the US model, and now developing countries are following it. The Car-Road-Growth-Model is now in trouble and we should recognize that the Model has been associated with painful sacrifice of immense scale, for which both current car manufacturing and governmental systems are responsible.

At the time of difficulty of car industries, we should rebuild the Car-Road-Growth-Model to the one which will achieve prosperity without sacrifice. This rebuilding will be made possible only by your strong leadership, and both car manufacturers and people will benefit by the production and use of cars which do not kill and injure people.

The revival of car manufacturing should also be combined with a drastic change of transportation policy - essentially from car dependency to walking, bicycling and using public transportation. This will lead to society with better health and better life quality.

Many people are ready to work with you to change the world to one of prosperity without sacrifice. This is how we turn your historic victory in the presidential election would be turned to the real victory of people, to coincide with your most impressive speech in Chicago on November 5, 2008.

Your adoption of the initiatives outlined above is most crucial to such a change in the world, especially since US policy is so influential and right now people all over the world are expecting from you and your government to bring about positive change.

We are looking forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

Yukio Oguri, Japan, Brigitte Chaudhry, UK, Christer Hydén、Sweden

* * * * * Personal Messages of World Voice for Peace on Roads * * * * *

Dear Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden,
From Kazuyo Kusuda, Mother of Toshihide
December 4, 2008

My son Toshihide was killed 6 years ago as a road traffic victim. He was only 19 when his precious life was taken. The sudden and unbearable loss took not only my son's future, but also the future of us, the bereaved, destroying our daily life instantly. We should not shut our eyes to this terrible reality of our vehicle-dependent society founded on numerous victims. I believe in the capability of yourselves, family members of road traffic victims who know the pain, in steering the auto industry in the right direction - towards a real revitalization, providing an opportunity to review how "automobiles" themselves should be manufactured in order to stop preventable road traffic casualties.

Dear Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden,
December 5, 2008
Takae Saito, Mother of Takuya Saito, Fukushima, Japan

On December 29, 2006, Takuya, my loving son, was robbed of his life, when he was 15 years and 9 months old and a high school first grade boy, by a track of 20 tons which was carelessly driven and turned at a crossing. Such grief, such hardship, and such outrage! I cannot find him anywhere even though I look everywhere. Even if I would ask NASA to explore the whole universe, she won't be able to find him, since he has passed away to a place where he will never be discovered. Killing weapon named car... traffic war... I firmly believe that you will face up to the fact that so many people are sacrificed by these killing weapons produced by human beings, and that you will take action to change the motor industry as the first step of change.

Mr. President Elect Obama,
Kizo Kanazawa,
Representative, Association of Voices of Traffic Accident Victims,
Association for Zero Track Causalities
December 6, 2008

We are a bereaved family who lost their father in a car crash 6 years ago. Only the achievement of motor industries has been given focus so far, but the world has changed. The value system also has changed. Please think of sinful aspect of the industry. All the world leaders should not close their eyes to this sin. Without retrospect, true happiness will never be achieved.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden
Katsunori and Juri Ozawa
December 7, 2008

A car in which our family was driving was crashed into by an out-of-control car. Our parents were killed to our deep sorrow and our younger brother and sister were found seriously injured after being rescued from the car which completely lost its original shape. The criminal driver was drunk and drove his car at the speed of more than 100 kph. The person who provided him the liquer was punished because of his violation of traffic law. The driver was sentenced to 16 years in jail under the clause of Dangerous Driving which Caused Death and Injuries at local court. We have since become active in actions to prevent other families suffering as we have done, including at universities and driving schools.
We would like to convey our voice, hoping that the voices of victims, which individually are too small, will be made big and significant by your actions.

Sora

December 12, 2008

It has been two years since the accident. The perpetrator does not have any feelings of remorse. There has not even been an apology . 'It was not intentional, it was not meant to be that way,' that was all. It seems to me that the perpetrator feels that it was just 'bad luck'. (The problem is that it has been put down to just bad luck') Then what can I do about our daughter who lost her life? She'll never come back. She was just 16. What do they think of her future that she never had? Life is not to be taken so lightly. Our sadness will never disappear. Those who were left behind are still suffering. However, perhaps the perpetrator will eventually forget about the accident. There should never be a road accident. There are differences in perception about accidents between the victims and the perpetrators. The number of victims is not reducing. There should never be anyone else who experiences anything similar. There should be a re-think about vehicle safety.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden
Toshiaki Maeda
Sapporo,
Representative of Hokkaido Traffic Victims Association
December 12, 2008

My then-17-year-old eldest daughter was hit and killed by a car while she was walking along the street 13 years ago. The woman driver was not watching where she was going, and my daughter was deprived of everything due to the driver’s carelessness. I believe that automobiles, which we human beings had created as convenient tools, now have unfortunately worked as street random killers, and I believe this situation is the very thing that must be changed. I heard that (both of you) lost your family member(s) in car crashes in the past; thus, both of you must know very well about how grievous such losses are for the bereaved. I think our society has been putting too much emphasis on moving with great velocity even though such a society ends up with victims of road deaths. Therefore, I would like to ask both of you to step forward so as that our world society can escape from the worship of speed, and can stop chains of crying families.

Mr. Barack Obama, President Elect , Mr. Joe Biden, and Vice President Elect
Izumi Takahashi
Representative of Architecture@ism First Class Architecture Office,
Mother of two Children
December 19, 2008

Like the United States, Japan is also a country where the automobile industry supports its economy and the people’s lives. Therefore, automobiles seem to be given great preference over anything here even though kids are injured or killed in car crashes. Many kids have been deserted day after day, but somebody might say, “We desperately need cars, so we cannot help having children’s lives taken away.” Now we are living in the 21st century, and the society in the new century must stop putting cars before pedestrians. I would like to convey my messages as follows:
Firstly, I believe that people in the world, including the United States should recreate automobiles from scratch. We need new vehicles of the 21st century which never unreasonably kill or injure kids on roads. Therefore, when the U.S. government bails out car makers with public money, they should be required to develop such new types of vehicles instead.
In addition, driving while looking the other way, drunk driving, and over-paced driving—such reckless driving daily kill and injure people. With many victims of road deaths every day, today’s children are wrongly learning that ill treatment toward our lives is to be allowed. Kids learn from the reality, accepting the idea that dying of car crashes must be taken for granted. Please can you show children in the future another way toward creating new cars that never kill people? I really want no more children to be killed by cars. Thus, I strongly hope that many people stand up now for the action.

Messrs Obama and Biden
Yukio Oguri
Professor, Chiba University of Commerce
Director, Soft Car Project Team
January 12, 2009

When I lived in a totally car dependent man made city, Tsukuba, in 1982, the idea came to me of developing a Soft Car. The Soft Car is a car with the maximum speed adjusted according to the road environment, either manually by pushing buttons, or automatically with GPS, and this adjustment is indicated to those outside by LED (Light Emitting Diode) light. I became determined to develop my Soft Car idea when my elder sister, Taeko, was killed in 1997 - by a middle aged lady driving a small car.
In 2000, the Soft Car project was given a research fund of more than 1 million US$ by the Japanese government, and we developed equipment that changes Hard Cars into Soft Cars. Electric Soft Cars, whose maximum speed can be controlled at 2, 4, 6, 15, 30 kilometers per hour (kph), and when unlimited are able to run at 50kph, appeared at Aichi International EXPO 2005, and were enthusiastically welcomed.
When I heard the voices of bereaved families with whom I started contact in 2006, I found that each of the tragedies is harsh and the grief deep, and that the tragedies resulting from car crashes worldwide amount to a humanitarian disaster. This reality made me write to you. I sincerely believe that you will take the right actions.

* Full texts of the following messages are in process of translation.

Hitomi Eda feels so sorry about a daughter of an actor whom she supports. The daughter was killed in January 2007, just before her 11th birthday.

Yuji Morimoto, who lost his son at age 22 in a car crash, says Big 3 and US are now in serious trouble. Mr. Obama should tell Big 3 that they have been too greedy and that future prosperity will be created only by gentle cars which do not kill people.

Yoshiro Nishiura, RepresentMeative of Traffic Victims Association TAV, whose daughter Megumi was killed on January 19, 1999, says that the lives sacrificed by the motor industries should be openly examined and we should create cars that are gentle for people and environment.

Sada-aki Fukuchi says automobiles have deprived innumerable number of lives. Safety measures by automakers have totally neglected the safety of pedestrians. Now is the time automobile-for kingdoms including Japan and US take responsibility

Voice for Peace on the World's Roads - letter to Messrs Obama and Biden (Draft)

2008-11-23T04:08:00.000-08:00

I am uploading this draft of the letter to Mr.Obama and Mr.Biden.

I prepared this letter communicating with a lady who played the essential role to let UN acknowledge the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims and the draft was edited by her. However, I am uploading this by my name only because this draft will be amended further and we are now at the stage to contacting people to receive their opinions.

You can give your comments on the letter to this blog or send your e-mail to oguri@cuc.ac.jp .

*

To: Mr. Barack Obama & Mr. Joe Biden, President and Vice President Elect, United States of America
From: Names of senders + Yukio Oguri, Ph.D. in City Planning, Professor, Chiba University of Commerce, Japan, Director of Soft Car Project, Honorary member of RoadPeace, oguri@cuc.ac.jp,
Re: Bailout of Car Manufacturers and Change of Automobile and Road Traffic Policy
Date: November 21, 2008

Dear Mr. Obama & Mr. Biden,

We are the voice of people of the world - bereaved families, representatives of road victim and road safety NGOs, transportation and city planners, and citizens of good will, and are writing on their behalf. We have come to be connected by varied networks, one of which was created through the observance of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (http://www.worlddayofremembrance.org/), a Day started in 1993 in the UK and observed for a decade in Europe, until it was adopted by United Nations Resolution A60 on 26th October 2005 and since commemorated worldwide.

We were very impressed by your historic victory in the presidential election, which was a people’s victory. We would like to congratulate you and the US people. We also understand that you now face enormous problems and are at present developing your policies.

Among many other plans, we understand that you are seriously considering a bailout of car manufacturers as one of the measures to overcome the financial crisis. Although we understand that this bailout is to avoid possible job losses, we would like to send a keen message of caution.

Car manufacturing and road construction have been the major instruments of economic prosperity of the United States. Many countries all over the world followed the US model, and now developing countries are following it. This model may be named - Car-Road-Growth-Model, which has been very successfully activated by an intimate partnership between governments and car manufacturers.

Painfully though, the success of the Car-Road-Growth-Model has been associated with immense worldwide sacrifice, i.e. disruption of nature, communities, and most importantly, human lives.

Especially, we have to pay serious attention to the outrageous number of sacrificed lives. According to the World Report published by the WHO and World Bank in 2004, 1.2 million people were killed and 20 to 50 million injured worldwide in 2002. An estimated 35 million people have been killed in car crashes worldwide until now. The dimensions exceed by far those of wars. Mr. Kofi Annan, former Secretary - General of the United Nation delivered this message on World Health Day 2004: “Road safety can prevent needless suffering, but does not happen by chance” (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sgsm9224.doc.htm).

We learned that family members of both of you were killed and injured in car crashes and would like to send our sincere sympathy.

Victims of road traffic are the sacrifice of the Car-Road-Growth-Model, for which both governments and business, especially car manufacturers, need to accept responsibility. Change will only truly come when the Car-Road-Growth-Model is remodeled and the right actions are taken.

With this in view, we strongly urge you not to take action to bail out American car-makers. If you take the action of bailing out, it will mean that you ignore the immense sacrifices, which will become even larger in scale especially in developing countries, though it will not be your intention. In case it is taken, this should only be with a strong condition that cars must be remodeled not to kill or seriously injure people.

* Many research projects for safe vehicle systems in our network show that after a revision of their excessive power and speeding capability, cars can still work well, can be better controlled by drivers, can be manufactured cheaper, will consume less energy, and most importantly, will be far less likely to kill or injure people - this will therefore be a positive step forward all round as it will also stimulate new technologies, create new demand and create new job opportunities.

This conditional bailout should also be combined with a drastic change of transportation policy - essentially from car dependency to walking, bicycling ad using public transportation.

Many people are ready to work with you to change the world to one of prosperity without sacrifice.

Your adoption of the initiatives outlined above is most crucial to such a change in the world, especially since US policy is so influential and people all over the world are expecting from you and your government to bring about positive change.

We are looking forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

ICTCT Beijing Workshop on Vulnerable Road Users

2007-03-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

International Cooperation on Theories and Concepts in Traffic Safety, president of which is Professor Christer HYDÉN of University of Lund, Sweden, is going to hold a special workshop in Beijing on April 2 and 3, whose theme is "Road user behaviour with a special focus on vulnerable road users Technical, social and psychological aspects". I met Professor Christer HYDÉN and András VÁRHELYI in Malmo, Sweden in last October after ITS World Congress in London, and I understood I should attend. By various reasons, I only very recentlly decided to attend, and the Secretaries of the Workshop, i.e. Dr. Ralf RISSER of Ausria and Mr. Clemens KAUFMANN of Austria worked hard to insert my presentation into already constructed program. I am very thankful for their accepting me. Following is a summary of my presantation, and I hope it will tell you why I have been quiet in this blog and why it is essential to attend Beijing Workshop.

I am very much looking forward to seeing my old friends of Europe and new frieds of China in Beijing soon.

Viewing Traffic Safety Issues from Victims’ Standpoints
- Developing Wider Social Acceptance of Safe Speed Initiatives -

Yukio Oguri Professor, Faculty of Policy Informatics, Chiba University of Commerce (CUC)
Director of Soft Car Millennium Project, Japan oguri@cuc.ac.jp

The author and his associates have been conducting Soft Car Project both locally in Japan and internationally exchanging information with ISA experts in Europe and Australia. The concept of Soft Car emerged in 1982 and is a type of ISA car with an additive equipment, i.e. Maximum Speed Indicator which indicates four (4) levels of maximum speed either chosen by drive manually or set automatically utilizing GPS with four (4) types of color of light to those out of the car and to the driver him/herself, and violation of maximum speed is identified by flickering of light. In 2000, with three (3) years research fund of the Japanese Government, they started developing Soft Car equipments, and experiments both in the community next to CUC and in a driving test course proved appropriate performance of them. Questionnaire surveys proved good acceptance of Soft Car by various types of people. Soft Car demonstration was undertaken in Malacca, Malaysia in 2001, and electric Soft Cars (Soft Q Cars) were used for everyday parades in Expo Aichi 2005. Soft Car caravan to visit city mayors, elementally schools, etc. were undertaken in the Exposition period with high popularity. Outcomes of the project have been presented at various occasions, including at ITS World Congresses, by the author and mass media reported them quite frequently. At a special session in ITS World Congress Nagoya 2004, the author and ISA expert developed a concept of “World Wide Platform of Safe Speed Initiatives”. However, the project has not been successful enough to let car manufactures produce Soft Cars and to let governments enforce drivers to install Soft Car equipments on their cars.

The author realized that they should get back to the essential target their project, which was to make our community safer and livable. They started researching traffic environments of the roads used by pupils of an elementary school next to CUC and found that most of the drivers violate legal maximum speed and it was so dangerous for children. In summer of 2006, the author started to report cases of traffic accidents in his blog named Soft Car Diary (http://blog.livedoor.jp/oguriyukio/) utilizing news by mass media and internet. A father whose daughter was killed in one of the most disastrous traffic incidents in recent years in City of Kawaguchi next to Tokyo, in which four (4) kinder garden children of ages 3, 4 and 5 were killed and 17 others were injured by a speeding wagon, contacted the author through the blog. Communicating with the father, the author found inadequacy of traffic-accident-related-law to punish criminal drivers and of speed-regulation-related-law-and-ordinance. The father and his friend parents whose daughters were also killed in the disaster started a campaign to change existing law to punish criminal drivers more severely, and around 220 thousands citizens showed their sympathy with their signature to support the campaign. Ministry of Law and Police Agency started to examine to change existing laws. The mayor of Kawaguchi started to explore the way to turn his city into a special district where legal maximum speed would be regulated at much lower level. The author’s blog reported actions of victimized families, national and local governments, and it became a forum for many fathers and mothers whose children were killed, who have fear their children being injured or killed someday and experts with legal and planning knowledge for traffic safety. Another blog by a young and popular actor whose daughter was also killed in January of this year has also become such a forum, through which the author started communicating with the actor and concerned parents. The messages exchanged there are essentially on grief and anger of the victims and on how not to sacrifice small lives. However, author believes such network of emotion will become a firm base to nourish Safe Speed Initiatives all over the world, and will eventually push motor manufacturers and government take appropriate measures for traffic safety.

The author conclude his presentation with the statement that (1) traffic safety issues should be viewed from a comprehensive view combining technology, law, administration, industry, psychology, etc. with regarding the emotion of victims of traffic accidents as its essential core ; and (2) China, which is the frontier of traffic system for the 21st century, will be a leading country to take Safe Speed Initiatives of the world and we, who take safety initiatives in Japan, are willing to collaborate with Chinese people in cooperation with European experts.

How the "Platform" Came Out?

2006-06-03T03:09:00.000-07:00

Special session 21 on "Speed Adaptation for Safe and Livable Community" at the 11th World Congress on ITS in Nagoya 2004 was held with the following as the panelists: Sadayuki Tsugawa, Dr.Eng., Professor, Meijo University, and Invited Research Fellow, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan; Michael Regan, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Accident Research Centre, Monash University, Australia; Craig Morrison, MBA, Managing Director, Sentinel Geo Systems Pty Ltd, Australia; Torbjörn Biding, Swedish National Road Administration and Chairman of the Steering Committee of SpeedAlert, Sweden; András Várhelyi, Associate Professor. PhD Eng., Department of Technology and Society, University of Lund, Sweden; Vincent Blervaque, Project and Development Manager, ERTICO, Coordinator of SpeedAlert Project and PReVENT Subproject MAPS&ADAS, EU; Ken-ichi Yoshimoto, Dr.Eng., Professor, Saitama Institute of Technology, Emeritus Professor of University of Tokyo, Japan (chairman); and myself(Yukio Oguri, Ph.D., Professor, Chiba University of Commerce, Director of Soft Car Millennium Project Team, Japan,chairman).

It was great that colleagues from three regions of the world, i.e. Europe, Australia and Japan, got together at a place and presented their projects there. However, a 90 minutes session was not enough to show how they were conducting their projects and to develop dialogue what should be done next.

I talked with most of the panelist before the session how to proceed. Should we develop "Nagoya Protocol"? Who give signature to it? We couldn't settle. 30 minutes before the Session, there came panelists to the session room. In the picture above, from left to right, you see Craig Morrison, Torbjörn Biding, András Várhelyi, Michael Regan, and me.

Then, Mike said, in short, "How about a 'platform'？". It was a great idea. During the session, I repeated the word 'platform' in my mind, and at the end of the Session I proposed "World Wide Platform for Safe Speed Initiatives".

You will know what they had been doing and/or are currently doing in coming blogs.

Let Us Now Start World Wide Platform for Safe Speed Initiatives

2006-06-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

In 2004, 11th World Congress on Intelligent Transport System(ITS) was held in Nagoya, Japan. I (Oguri: oguri@cuc.ac.jp) organized a special session on "Speed Adaptation for Safe and Livable Community" with attendance of EU, Swedish, Australian and Japanese experts on ITS, who are especially concentrating their efforts on safe speed initiatives.

Speed has been regarded as the most attractive feature of automobiles since their birth at the end of 19th century, and actually attracted enormous number of people, or, in other words, most of the humanity.

Speed has been, on other hand, most dangerous elements of automobiles killing and harming people. Many parts of the cities and villages of the world have been demolished to construct more roads for more cars with the speed of cars as given factor.

To develop harmonious relationship between people, cars and communities, "safe speed" has to be the key concept, and initiatives for safe speed have been taken by many people all over the world.

In the Special Session of Nagoya ITS World Congress, all the panelists and participants agreed to develop "World Wide Platform for Safe Speed Initiatives", and the platform has been working to facilitate mutual communication on such initiatives.

This blog today starts to empower such communication and to develop a strong platform for safe speed initiatives all over the world. Those who wish to inform what is going on in their cities, universities, companies, governments, etc., to invite people to their activities, or to ask help from others, please send me an e-mail to oguri@cuc.ac.jp. Your mail will be posted on this blog. You can simply send URL's and the attachment of pictures and illustration is highly welcome.