MODELING CRASH RISK DUE TO TRAFFIC RULE VIOLATIONS FOR EDUCATION, ENFORCEMENT AND ENGINEERING COUNTERMEASURES

1 online resource (96 pages) : PDF

2017

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

With 1.3 million deaths, motor vehicle crashes contributed to 2.2% of the total deaths in the world during 2012. Traffic rule violations are the major reason for the occurrence of crashes and fatalities world-wide. Education, enforcement and engineering countermeasures are adopted to reduce traffic rule violations around the world. However, only a few studies primarily investigated traffic rule violations. Therefore, this study focuses on modeling crashes due to traffic rule violations by crash severity or injury severity to serve as a basis for practitioners when identifying and proposing different types of countermeasures. The study objectives are: (a) to model driver injury severity in crashes due to traffic rule violations to provide basis for education countermeasures, (b) to rank traffic rule violations for enforcement or prioritization purposes, and, (c) to model driver injury severity of at-fault and not at-fault drivers separately to identify if any engineering countermeasures can be implemented.Crash data was gathered from the Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) for the state of North Carolina from 2009 to 2013. Separate data processing techniques were adopted for each objective of this study. The dependent variable in this study is driver injury severity. The five levels of severity (fatal, incapacitating injury, non-incapacitating injury, possible injury, and property damage only (PDO)) were redefined into three categories - severe injury (grouping fatal and incapacitating injury), moderate injury (grouping non-incapacitating injury and possible injury levels) and no injury (PDO).The results from modeling driver injury severity as a function of only traffic rule violations indicates that most of the traffic rule violations have higher probabilities of resulting in severe driver injury compared to injury when disregarding traffic signals. Exceeding the speed limit is more likely to result in severe injury to the driver compared to driver injury due to disregarding traffic signals. The risk drivers violating traffic rules pose to themselves is higher than the risk they pose to other drivers. The findings from this modeling serve as evidence to educate and generate awareness among drivers of the risk of violating traffic rules for themselves as well as for other drivers.Traffic rule violations were ranked to serve as a basis for enforcement and prioritization purposes. Relatively higher variations in ranks was observed when individual methods such as frequency (expressed as a function of the number of drivers violating traffic rules), crash severity, total crash cost per year and cost severity index were considered, whereas the variations in ranks was minimal when composite ranks were considered. The composite rank obtained by combining frequency and crash severity is recommended for prioritization of traffic rule violations, and hence, allocation of funding.Crashes during extreme weather conditions, bad lighting conditions, on roads with speed limits greater than 45 mph, rural roads, road sections that are not straight level, and roads with access control are more likely to result in severe injury to the driver not at-fault in case of two-vehicle crashes. The findings assist transportation professionals to understand the driver injury severity of not at-fault drivers and at-fault drivers in two-vehicle crashes.

doctoral dissertations

Civil engineering
Transportation

Ph.D.

Countermeasures
Crash Risk
Education
Injury Severity
Traffic Rules
Violations

Infrastructure & Environmental Systems

Pulugurtha, Srinivas

Hauser, Edd
Janardhanam, Rajaram
Kane, Martin
Dreau, Didier

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2017.

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Penmetsa_uncc_0694D_11333

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:1101