High Speed Rail No Safety Belt, Why?

Why There is No Safety Belt on The High Speed Rail

I believe that many people will have such a question, the aircraft has a seat belt, the car has a seat belt, why more than 300 kilometers per hour high-speed train does not have a safety belt? Is this the special national conditions in China? Obviously not. Because high-speed rail all over the world are not equipped with safety belt. High speed rail is a new thing? This can be said in China, in terms of global, Japan's new trunk line opened in 1964, has been nearly 50 years, it is clearly not a new thing.

Why there is no safety belt on high-speed rail? To sum up, there are three main reasons for this.

First, the high-speed rail on the stability control is extremely strict, even to the extent of metamorphosis.

Let me cite one simple example, high-speed railway started, whether you're chatting with friends, or in looking down at his newspaper, if not the scenery with a rapid light changes, you are hardly aware of the vehicle has been underway.

Take another example. Passengers have tested on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway train, during the train accelerates from zero to 300 kilometers per hour; he could have made the cigarette stand upright on the small dining table of the train. Another scenario is also impressive, there was a child in the 300 kilometres per hour high-speed train actually take the building blocks of a dozen layers, and toward his grandfather happily clapping.

High-speed rail is subject to two tracks, also benefit from the two tracks. On the one hand, China's high-speed railway in the control of the acceleration of the strict control to ensure the stability of the longitudinal movement, on the other hand it was firmly controlled by two high-speed train rails, especially China's high-speed rail use non ballasted track to strictly control the smoothness of the track to ensure that the train does not have a large lateral and vertical vibration. So under normal circumstances, you can freely walk on the train, instead of always fixed yourself in your seat.

Second, when the high speed train accident happened, the damage that safety belts give passengers is much greater than the potential protection of safety belts gives.

This is one of the most important and fundamental reasons. In Europe, the application of high speed rail is relatively early, and the research on the safety of high-speed railway operation is also more. European rail safety and standards committee for investigation of a large number of discovery through, at the time of the train in the event of a major accident, passengers were more vulnerable to injury, mainly because they were bound by the safety belt, more easily by carriage structure collapse caused by damage, because they are unable to avoid the danger.

The study concluded that, on the high-speed rail, improved seat design is more effective to enhance the safety of passengers when the train accident, rather than the installation of safety belts. Currently the world's high-speed rail seat is also commonly used "collision avoidance" of safety seat (some people think that it is just an ordinary seat, even like a joke to take the high speed rail seat price compare with the household seat’s, and they don’t know the technical content of the high speed rail seat.), designed to ensure that when the rear passenger’s head or knee forward and crashed into the seat back, the seat back can timely collapse deformation to prevent the passengers stuck.

In this context, the UK Transport Research Laboratory derived from field tests show that both the two-point seat belt use on the plane or three-point belt on the car cannot achieve the desired of "safe" conclusion. Because, two points in the event of a collision, the constraints of the passengers on the waist hip position, just constitute the rotation axis, the head forward dive into the seat of the force, enough to break the neck. Select the three-point seat belt does not have this problem, but a new problem has arisen that crumple-style “collision avoidance " is insufficient to support the seat three-point belt restraint force brought, that is to say, the two cannot be used in combination.

The European railway sector by six typical of longitudinal collision situation analysis found that seat belt restraint on passenger on the seat, it is true to avoid passengers being thrown out the damage caused, but high-speed rail trains bulky, this possibility is already small, back passenger seat belt is a big danger. The results of the analysis showed that 11 people were rescued by the safety belt, but 88 people were fixed on the seat, and lost the escape space. It seems from the figures that the uses of seat belts harm than good on the train already, especially high-speed rail.

Third, The Real Reason

In practice, it is difficult to operate, because the person who is not willing to take the high-speed rail safety belt. People choose high-speed rail rather than aircraft, a very important reason is that high-speed rail are spacious, smooth running, people used to move freely inside the carriage, go to different carriages to visit friends, so few people are willing to take high-speed rail seat belt.

Europe once did an experiment. In 1999, Finland conducted a test on a commercial high-speed railway, in which the train of three carriages in the installation of 271 sets of safety belt. First of all, they take investigation in the carriage without safety belt, only 26% passengers said that if there is a safety belt, they are willing to use. If you think the proportion of 26% has been very low, in fact the results are even more surprising. In the carriage with safety belts, the passengers who actually willing to fasten the safety belts only accounted for 1.1%. Most passengers feel that sit on the seat with safety belt always uncomfortable and contrary to the train travel feeling. Eventually, Finland stopped pushing safety belt on high-speed rail. They come to the conclusion of people are not willing to use the safety belt on the train.

Some people may have a doubt like this: why aircraft and automobile don’t use safety seat, but use safety belt to bound people?

For Airplane

First, airplane also uses a safety seat which can effectively protect the safety of people. The plane safety belt mainly used to prevent air turbulence. Aircraft flying in the air, unlike the steady train running on the track, so the situation is more complicated encounter. The acceleration of the change in the human body before and after the passive displacement and complex weather caused by the up and down violent bumps, all need the help of the safety belt. Serious, rotate under the strong turbulence will throw the passengers who don’t fasten the safety belt into the aircraft cabin roof then fell to the seat or on the floor, so the aircraft needs safety belt.

For Car

Car seat belts, mainly to prevent secondary collisions. When the car collision or unexpected emergency braking, will produce huge inertia force, make the driver and passenger and car steering wheel, windshield, seat backrest objects collision, extremely easy to cause serious injury to the crew, even the occupant kick-off seat or thrown out of the car. The seat belt can bound the occupants in their seats, to prevent secondary collisions, and its buffer is able to absorb large amounts of kinetic energy, reduce the degree of harm occupants. According to the researches result of Tokyo University, if rear seat passengers wear safety belts, the front seat passengers’ mortality rate will reduce 80%. That is because when the crash happening, the rear seat passengers without safety belts will hit behind of the front seat. That’s why passengers sit on the rear seat must wear safety belts.