In recent years, high-speed rail can be said to be a more popular means of transportation, but many people who sit on the high-speed rail will have such a question, there are seat belts on the plane, there are seat belts on the car, why is there no seat belt on the high-speed EMU with a speed of more than 300 km / h? Is it the special situation of our country?
Obviously not, because high-speed trains all over the world don't have seat belts. Because high speed rail is a new thing? In China, it can be said that globally, Japan's Shinkansen was opened in 1964, which has been nearly 50 years. Obviously, it is not a new thing.
Why is there no seat belt on high speed rail?
First, the control of high-speed railway on stability is extremely strict, even to the extent of metamorphosis.
To take the simplest example, when the high-speed railway starts, no matter you are chatting with friends or looking down at your newspaper, if the scenery and light outside the window do not change rapidly, it is difficult for you to realize that the vehicle has started.
High speed rail is subject to two tracks, but also benefits from two tracks. On the one hand, China's high-speed railway has strict control on acceleration control to ensure the stability of longitudinal movement; on the other hand, the high-speed train is firmly controlled by two rails, especially the ballastless track used in China's high-speed railway strictly controls the smoothness of the track to ensure that the train can not have large lateral and vertical vibration. So under normal circumstances, you can walk freely on the train without fixing yourself in your seat all the time.
Second, when the high-speed train accident occurs, the safety belt gives passengers far more harm than potential protection.
This is the most important and fundamental reason. In Europe, the application of high-speed rail is relatively early, and there are many researches on the active and passive safety of high-speed rail. Through a large number of investigations, the European railway safety and Standards Commission found that in a major train accident, passengers bound to the seats are more likely to be injured, mainly because the passengers bound to the seats by the seat belts are more vulnerable to the damage caused by the collapse of the car structure, because they can not effectively avoid.
The research results show that, on high-speed rail, improving the design of seats can effectively improve the safety of passengers in train accidents, rather than installing seat belts. At present, the seats commonly used in high-speed railway in the world are 'anti-collision' safety seats, which can be designed to ensure that when the head or knee of the rear passenger bumps forward against the back of the seat, it can collapse and deform in time to prevent the passenger from getting stuck.
Under such a premise, the British Transport Research Laboratory's field test shows that no ideal or 'safe' conclusion can be reached whether using the two-point seat belt on the plane or the three-point seat belt on the car. Because when the two-point safety belt collides, the restraint for passengers is concentrated on the waist and hip, which just constitutes the rotation axis. The force of head diving forward into the seat is enough to break the neck. There is no such problem when choosing the three-point seat belt, but a new problem arises, that is, the collapsible 'crash' seat is not enough to support the force constraint brought by the three-point seat belt, that is to say, the two can not be used together.
Through analyzing six typical longitudinal collisions, the European Railway Department found that the safety belt restrained the passengers on the seats, which certainly avoided the injury caused by the passengers being thrown out. However, due to the huge volume of high-speed trains, this possibility is very small, and the safety belt also brought great danger to the passengers. The conclusion of the analysis shows that 11 people were rescued because of the fixed function of the safety belt, but 88 people were on the fixed seats, and lost the space to escape. From the number, the disadvantages of using the safety belt on the train are greater than the advantages, especially the high-speed railway.
Third, it is difficult to operate in practice because people on high-speed rail are not willing to wear seat belts.
One of the most important reasons why people choose high-speed rail instead of airplanes is that the high-speed rail is spacious and runs smoothly. People are used to moving freely in the car and visiting friends in the car. Therefore, few people are willing to wear seat belts on high-speed rail.
There was an experiment in Europe. In 1999, Finland carried out a test on a commercial high-speed railway, and 271 sets of safety belts were installed in three carriages of the train. First of all, they conducted a survey in cars without seat belts. Only 26% of the passengers said they would use seat belts if they had. Don't think that 26% is already very low. In practice, the result is even more astonishing.
Only 1.1% of the passengers were actually willing to wear seat belts when they took three cars equipped with seat belts. The reason given by the passengers is that it is uncomfortable and goes against the characteristics of train travel. In the end, Finnish railways stopped pushing seat belts on trains and concluded that people were reluctant to use seat belts on trains.