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Folgen der StVO-Änderung für das Verkehrsverhalten von Kraftfahrern beim Auftreten von Kindern
(1983)
Eine der im Jahre 1980 vorgenommenen Änderungen der Straßenverkehrsordnung (StVO) bezieht sich auf das Verhalten der Fahrzeugführer gegenüber Kindern, Hilfsbedürftigen und älteren Menschen. Danach sind die Fahrzeugführer gehalten, sich insbesondere durch Verminderungen der Fahrgeschwindigkeit und durch Bremsbereitschaft so zu verhalten, dass eine Gefährung dieser Verkehrsteilnehmer ausgeschlossen ist. In einem Versuch wurde der Frage nachgegangen, ob im Fahrverhalten der Kraftfahrer im Sinne der StVO-Vorgaben Veränderungen eingetreten sind. Neben Beobachtungen des Gesamtverkehrs wurden ausgedehnte Testfahrten mit Versuchspersonen sowie Befragungen durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die erwähnte Änderung der StVO sich bisher im praktischen Fahrverhalten kaum niedergeschlagen hat. An den Kindern am Straßenrand wurde mit relativ hoher Geschwindigkeit (im Mittel knapp unter 50 km/h) vorbeigefahren, wobei eine systematische Bremsbereitschaft nicht zu erkennen war. Die Befragung von Fahrzeugführern ergab, dass Unklarheiten darüber bestehen, welche Geschwindigkeit für Begegnungen mit Kindern angemessen sei. Für wünschenswert gehalten wurde eine Präzisierung eines Geschwindigkeitslimits. Abgesehen davon wurde festgestellt, dass die Neuregelungen der StVO inhaltlich noch kaum bekannt waren. Für das weitere Vorgehen erscheint es vorteilhat, aus Gründen der Eindeutigkeit und Einfachheit die Angaben von Höchst- oder Orientierungswerten in Erwägung zu ziehen. Wichtig erscheint, die Dominanz der derzeitigen innerörtlichen Höchstmarke "Tempo 50" abzubauen und auch niedrigere Höchstgeschwindigkeiten mit gleichem Stellenwert ins Bewusstsein zu rücken.
Aus Erfahrungen mit Untersuchungen zum Einsatz ortsfester Anlagen zur Geschwindigkeitsüberwachung werden für die künftige Forschung einige Forderungen erhoben. Die Erkenntnisse aus der Forschung zur Verbesserung der Verkehrssicherheit durch bauliche oder verkehrstechnische Maßnahmen sollten zur Optimierung des Einsatzes solcher Anlagen genutzt werden. Es wird dafür plädiert zu untersuchen, welche Standorte beim Einsatz ortfester Anlagen eine möglichst linienhafte Wirkung zu erzielen in der Lage sind. Insgesamt wird die Erarbeitung eines Kriterienkatalogs angeregt, der den jeweiligen Entscheidungsträgern bei der Planung und Aufstellung der Anlagen behilflich sein kann. Da ortsfeste Anlagen eine lediglich ortsspezifische Geschwindigkeitsanpassung bewirken, wird die Kombination ortsfester mit mobilen Kontrollen auf Landstraßen empfohlen. Es sollte auch untersucht werden, ob die Verkehrsüberwachung durch ortsfeste Anlagen nicht nur ein Beitrag zur Reduzierung von Geschwindigkeiten darstellt, sondern auch dazu beitragen kann, Überholunfälle zu reduzieren.
Es werden verschiedene Einflussfaktoren auf der Basis neuerer empirischer Befunde in ihrer Relevanz zur Erklärung regelkonformen wie -abweichenden Verkehrsverhaltens erörtert. Sanktionsschwere und Sanktionswahrscheinlichkeit (Entdeckungswahrscheinlichkeit) sind in ihrer Wirkung insofern verbunden, als eine hohe Strafe keine Abschreckung bewirkt, wenn die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Entdeckung minimal ist. Im Umkehrschluss gilt, dass eine hohe Entdeckungswahrscheinlichkeit nur bei einer bedeutsamen Sanktion von abschreckender Wirkung ist. Für das Verhalten sind eher Wahrnehmungen und Bewertungen der Betroffenen ausschlaggebend und weniger die objektiven Gegebenheiten, zum Beispiel die tatsächliche Überwachungsintensität beziehungsweise die Sanktionsschwere. Neben dem Einflussfaktor Unmittelbarkeit der Sanktionierung werden die unterstützende Wirkung von positiven Einstellungen, bauliche Veränderungen des Fahrraums und fahrzeugtechnische Entwicklungen diskutiert. Für die Erforschung der Abhängigkeit verschiedener Faktoren in ihrer Wirkung auf das Verhalten von Verkehrsteilnehmern wird die Theorie der Befolgung von Gesetzen von Opp in ihrer Modifikation von Diekmann favorisiert.
Im Zeitraum 1991/92 wurde in 15 europäischen Ländern eine Vergleichsstudie zu den Einstellungen und Meinungen von Autofahrern durchgeführt (das sogenannte SARTRE-Projekt). Anhand der dabei erhobenen Daten wurden Sekundäranalysen zur Altersgruppe der 18- bis 24-jährigen Autofahrer vorgenommen. Die Sekundäranalysen beruhen auf deskriptiven Vergleichen der Altersgruppen in den verschiedenen europäischen Ländern und varianzanalytischen Berechnungen. Wenn diese Berechnungen zu eher geringen Varianzaufklärungen geführt haben, ist dies auch in der schlechten Anpassung der abhängigen Variablen an der Normalverteilung begründet. Kleinere Effekte, vor allem die berichteten Interaktionseffekte, sind daher auch bei Vorliegen signifikanter Werte nur mit Vorbehalt zu interpretieren. Insgesamt lassen die Ergebnisse der Sekundäranalysen folgende Aussagen zum jungen Fahrer zu: 1. Junge Fahrer machen in den einzelnen europäischen Ländern unterschiedliche Anteile an den jeweiligen Fahrerpopulationen aus. Auch der Anteil der Frauen unter den jungen Fahrern schwankt beträchtlich. Bereits unter Berücksichtigung dieser beiden soziodemografischen Basismerkmale ergeben sich für die Verkehrssicherheitsarbeit in Europa unterschiedliche Gewichtungen. Der Anteil junger männlicher Fahrer ist besonders groß in den südeuropäischen Ländern. 2. Bei den meisten Meinungs- und Einstellungsfragen ist die Variabilität im Antwortverhalten zwischen den Fahrerpopulationen der Länder größer als die Variabilität der Altersgruppen innerhalb der Länder. Dies gilt insbesondere für den Themenkomplex "Sicherheitsgurt", mit Abstrichen auch für das Problemfeld "Alkohol und Fahren". Das Antwortverhalten der jungen Fahrer liegt hier in aller Regel im Trend nationaler Gewohnheiten und weicht nicht auffällig von den Meinungen und Einstellungen der übrigen Fahrer im eigenen Land ab. 3. Bei denjenigen Fragen, die die Einstellung zu geschwindigkeitsorientiertem und regelabweichendem Fahrverhalten und das damit verbundene Risiko betreffen, ist die Variabilität der Altersgruppen meist größer als die der Länderstichproben insgesamt. Die Bereitschaft, das - meist unterschätzte - Risiko hoher und regelabweichender Fahrgeschwindigkeiten einzugehen, scheint junge Fahrer - insbesondere junge männliche Fahrer - in Europa zu verbinden. Dieses Ergebnis der Sekundäranalyse ist sicher nicht überraschend, könnte aber eine inhaltliche Ausrichtung liefern, wenn es darum geht, europaweite Aufklärungsmaßnahmen für junge Fahrer in die Wege zu leiten.
The advent of active safety systems calls for the development of appropriate testing methods. These methods aim to assess the effectivity of active safety systems based on criteria such as their capability to avoid accidents or lower impact speeds and thus mitigate the injury severity. For prospective effectivity studies, simulation becomes an important tool that needs valid models not only to simulate driving dynamics and safety systems, but also to resolve the collision mechanics. This paper presents an impact model which is based on solving momentum conservation equations and uses it in an effectivity study of a generic collision mitigation system in reconstructed real accidents at junctions. The model assumes an infinitely short crash duration and computes output parameters such as post-crash velocities, delta-v, force directions, etc. and is applicable for all impact collision configurations such as oblique, excentric collisions. Requiring only very little computational effort, the model is especially useful for effectivity studies where large numbers of simulations are necessary. Validation of the model is done by comparison with results from the widely used reconstruction software PC-Crash. Vehicles involved in the accidents are virtually equipped with a collision mitigation system for junctions using the software X-RATE, and the simulations (referred to as system simulations) are started sufficiently early before the collision occurred. In order to assess the effectivity, the real accident (referred to as baseline) is compared with the system simulations by computing the reduction of the impact speeds and delta-v.
In-depth accident investigation offers many advantages for the analysis and comprehension of crash mechanisms. IFSTTAR makes such investigations since 1992 without interruption. The corresponding database contains more than 1200 accident case studies. Currently, in-depth accident investigation is one of the best ways to determine the speed or cars involved in accidents. This paper first presents the methods used for accident investigation and for accident kinematic reconstruction. Then, in order to illustrate the interest and possible applications of such accident data, it shows some results from a recent study based on the IFSTTAR in-depth accident study programme (IDAS) and dealing with the link between travelling speed and accident risk.
Motorcycle crashes in Austria: Analysis of causes and contributing factors based on in-depth data
(2017)
From CEDATU, the in-depth accident database run by the Vehicle Safety Institute at Graz University of Technology, a representative sample of 101 crashes involving at least one motorcycle was selected. The analysis focused on causes for crashes as well as on contributing factors, but also included parameters of road, riders and vehicles. Own riding speed and "unexpectable action by another road user" were the most frequent causes for accidents. Inappropriate safety distance or delayed reaction were frequent, both as causation factors and as contributing factors. Infrastructure issues never cause an accident, but they are very frequent as contributing factors; road geometry and road guidance are by far most frequent among these. This paper also discusses accidents by type and other parameters (e.g. injury severity by body region, collision speed, age and others), and compares accident causes to previous studies as well as the police reported accident statistics.
Rural roads (highways) in Germany have to provide both high road safety and an appropriate level of service in accordance with their function in the road network. Single carriageway rural roads often underperform these expectations. An analysis of severe accidents on rural roads found two main contributing factors. First, high or inappropriate speed leads to accidents caused by the loss of control of the vehicle. Second, unsafe passing manoeuvres related to a misjudgement of sight distance, speed of oncoming vehicles or a misjudgement of the driver vehicle's acceleration capability. On the five roads where unsafe passing manoeuvres were a main contributing factor to accident occurrence, single short passing lanes (600 m to 1.2 km) were built to provide safe passing. On the remaining two-lane sections passing was prohibited by road signs and road marking. This paper investigates the effect of this design change on the accident situation and on traffic flow. The research project is based on a before/after comparison of traffic and accident data. Traffic volume, vehicle types and their velocities as well as the time gaps between the vehicles were recorded at different cross-sections. The result shows a significant improvement in road safety. This improvement was especially noted for severe head-on crashes, which were reduced to almost zero. The analysis of traffic flow on these roads pointed out that the chosen lengths of passing lanes were sufficient for safe passing and thereby reduced the need for dangerous driving behaviour. The recommendations of this research were fundamental for the determination of the design parameters of the second highest design class (EKL 2) in the new German Rural Road Design Guideline (RAL) published in spring 2013.
The main focus of the benefit estimation of advanced safety systems with a warning interface by simulation is on the driver. The driver is the only link between the algorithm of the safety system and the vehicle, which makes the setup of a driver model for such simulations very important. This paper describes an approach for the use of a statistical driver model in simulation. It also gives an outlook on further work on this topic. The build-up process of the model suffices with a distribution of reaction times and a distribution of reaction intensities. Both were combined in different scenarios for every driver. Each scenario has then a specific probability to occur. To use the statistical driver model, every accident scene has to be simulated with each driver scenario (combinations of reaction times and intensities). The results of the simulations are then combined regarding the probabilities to occur, which leads to an overall estimated benefit of the specific system. The model works with one or more equipped participants and delivers a range for the benefit of advanced safety systems with warning interfaces.
Within this paper different European accident data sources were used to investigate the causations and backgrounds of road traffic accidents with pedestrians. Analyses of high level national data and in-depth accident data from Germany and Great Britain was used to confirm and refine preliminary accident scenarios identified from other sources using a literature review. General observations made included that a high proportion of killed or seriously injured pedestrian casualties impacted by cars were in "dark" light conditions. Seven accident scenarios were identified (each divided into "daylight" and "dark" light conditions) which included the majority of the car front-to-pedestrian crash configurations. Test scenarios were developed using the identified accident scenarios and relevant parameters. Hypothetical parameters were derived to describe the performance of pedestrian pre-crash systems based on the assumption that these systems are designed to avoid false positives as a very high priority, i.e. at virtually all costs. As result, three "Base Test Scenarios" were selected to be developed in detail in the AsPeCSS project. However, further Enhanced Test Scenarios may be needed to address environmental factors such as darkness if it is determined that system performance is sensitive to these factors. Finally, weighting factors for the accident scenarios for Europe (EU-27) were developed by averaging and extrapolation of the available data. This paper represents interim results of Work Package 1 within the AsPeCSS project.
The paper aims to study the injury risk and kinematics of pedestrians involved in different passenger vehicle collisions. Furthermore, the difference of pedestrian kinematics in the accidents involved minivan and sedan was analyzed. The 18 sample cases of passenger car to pedestrian collisions were selected from the database of In-depth Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha of China (IVAC),of which the 12 pedestrian accidents involved in a minivan impact for each case, and the 6 accidents in a sedan impact for each. The selected cases were reconstructed by using mathematical models of pedestrians and accident vehicles in a multi-body dynamic code MADYMO environment. The logistic regression models of the risks for pedestrian AIS 3+ injuries and fatalities were developed in terms of vehicle impact speed by analyzing the minivan-pedestrian and sedan-pedestrian accidents. The difference of pedestrian kinematics was identified by comparing the results from reconstructed pedestrian accidents between the minivans and sedans collisions. The result shows that there is a significant correlation among the impact speed and the severity of pedestrian injuries. The minivan poses greater risk to pedestrian than sedan at the same impact speed. The kinematics of pedestrian was greatly influenced by vehicle front shape.
Tree impacts are still one of the most important focal points of road deaths in Germany. For the year 2008, the latest figures in the national statistics show a share of 28% of road users killed in crashes with trees alongside a road amongst all crashes on rural roads (except the Autobahn). The official German statistics show the attribute "impact on a tree" since 1995. For this first reported year, the share of road users killed in such crashes was 30%. During the last 14 years, fatal accidents with road users killed on rural roads (except the Autobahn) after impacts on a tree declined by 60% from 1,737 (year 1995) to 696 (year 2008). But this is more or less in line with the general evolution of vehicle and traffic safety in Germany. For Germany as a whole the accident statistics do not show a reduction for "treer crashes" which is clearly more than the average for all accidents. But, as shown with the paper, there are different evolutions in the several German States. In public awareness the topic "tree impacts" is mostly associated with the situation in Germany after the reunification. At that time a lot of road users were killed on the avenues in the so called "new countries". The fact that "tree impacts" are still a big share within the figure of killed road users seems to be little-known. Using updated information coming from the official statistics and in-depth-studies, accident researchers can identify a big potential for further improvements of traffic safety on the associated district roads, state roads and federal highways. There is still a need to analyse more details of the accident occurrence with impacts on trees to generate new and updated findings on the current limits and potentials of measures to improve vehicle and traffic safety. To make further efforts in reducing the figures of victims of "tree impacts" the intensification of well-known conventional solutions " for example implementation of guard rails and reduction of speed - is an option. Measures related to vehicle safety technology especially in the field of primary (active) safety will have additional benefit within the physically imposed limits. With this background it can be seen that the subject "tree impacts" should be analysed with a holistic approach taking into account the entire system of driver, vehicle, road, the environment and a social consensus as well.
Small overlap frontal crashes are defined by a damage pattern with most of the vehicle deformation concentrated outboard of the main longitudinal structures. These crashes are prominent among frontal crashes resulting in serious and fatal injuries, even among vehicles that perform well in regulatory and consumer information crash tests. One of the critical aspects of understanding these crashes is knowing the crash speeds that cause the types of damage associated with serious injuries. Laboratory crash tests were conducted using 12 vehicles in three small overlap test conditions: pole, vehicle-to-vehicle collinear, and vehicle-to-vehicle oblique (15-degree striking angle). Field reconstruction techniques were used to estimate the delta V for each vehicle, and these results were compared with actual delta V values based on vehicle accelerometer data. Estimated delta Vs were 50% lower than actual values. Velocity change estimates for small overlap frontal crashes in databases such as NASS-CDS significantly underestimate actual values.
Bone fracture patterns could be crucial in reconstructing the nature of loading, especially in the lower limb and upper limb kinematics in vehicle-pedestrian crashes. In addition, use of FE bone models can be a handy tool to predict vehicle impact velocity and the impact direction. The point of fracture initiation in bone loading has been predicted quite accurately earlier. A methodology that predicts bone crack initiation and its propagation pattern for the six known loading directions using a single material and failure model is presented.
Pedestrian and cyclist are the most vulnerable road users in traffic crashes. One important aspect of this study was the comparable analysis of the exact impact configuration and the resulting injury patterns of pedestrians and cyclists in view of epidemiology. The secondary aim was assessment of head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrian and cyclists in primary and secondary impacts and to correlate the injuries related to physical parameters like HIC value, 3ms linear acceleration, and discuss the technical parameter with injuries observed in real-world accidents based documented real accidents of GIDAS and explains the head injuries by simulated load and impact conditions based on PC-Crash and MADYMO. A subsample of n=402 pedestrians and n=940 bicyclists from GIDAS database, Germany was used for preselection, from which 22 pedestrian and 18 cyclist accidents were selected for reconstruction by initially using PC-Crash to calculate impact conditions, such as vehicle impact velocity, vehicle kinematic sequence and throw out distance. The impact conditions then were employed to identify the initial conditions in simulation of MADYMO reconstruction. The results show that cyclists always suffer lower injury outcomes for the same accident severity. Differences in HIC, head relative impact velocity, 3ms linear contiguous acceleration, maximum angular velocity and acceleration, contact force, throwing distance and head contact timing are shown. The differences of landing conditions in secondary impacts of pedestrians and cyclists are also identified. Injury risk curves were generated by logistic regression model for each predicting physical parameters.
The accident research of Hanover and (from 1999 on) Dresden registered 736 leg injuries (AIS ≥ 2) from 1983 to March 2007. 174 of these injuries (23.6 %) were fractures or dislocations of foot and ankle. 149 feet of 141 front seat car occupants in 140 cars were affected. Of these 117 were drivers, 24 were front seat passengers. The mean age of occupants was 38.5 -± 16.8 years. Ankle fractures were the most frequent injury (n = 82; 80 malleolar fractures, 2 pilon fractures). 34 fractures and dislocations affected the hindfoot (5 talus and 26 calcaneal fractures, 2 subtalar dislocations and 1 subtotal amputation) , 16 to midfoot (4 navicular fractures, 5 cuboid fractures, 3 fractures of cuneiformia, 2 dislocations of chopart joint, 1 subtotal amputation, and one severe decollement) and 39 the forefoot (metatarsal fractures). Open fractures were seldom seen (2 malleolar fractures, 1 metatarsal fracture). Both feet were injured in 10 cases. 33 occupants (23.4 %) were polytaumatic had a polytrauma, 17 of them died. 81 percent of the occupants were belted. The cars were divided in pre EuroNCAP (year of manufacture 1997 and older) and post EuroNCAP cars (year of manufacture 1998 and newer). Most of the foot injuries were seen in pre EuroNCAP cars. Most of the occupants sat in compact cars (40 drivers and 9 front seat passengers) and large family cars (27 drivers and 7 co-drivers). 49 of 140 accidents occurred on country roads, 26 on main roads and 13 on motorways. The crash direction was mostly frontal. Generally were found no differences of delta v- and EES-level between the injured foot regions, but divided into pre- and post-EuroNCAP cars there was a tendency to higher delta v- and EES-levels in newer cars. The frequency of foot injuries increased linearly with increasing delta v-level; but above delta v-level of 55 km/h the linear increase only was seen in pre-EuroNCAP cars, post-EuroNCAP cars showed no further increase of injuries. The footwell intrusion showed no difference between the injured foot regions but pre-EuroNCAP cars had a tendency to higher footwell intrusion. There were no differences in footwell intrusion between the car types. Only 29 of 174 fractures or dislocations of foot were seen in post-EuroNCAP cars, the predominate number of these injuries (n = 145) were noticed in pre-EuroNCAP cars. A lower probability of long-term impairment was found in post-EuroNCAP cars for equal delta v levels, using the AIS2008 associated Functional Capacity Index (FCI) for the foot region.
Recent findings from real-world accident data have shown that fatality risks for pedestrians are substantially lower than generally reported in the traffic safety literature. One of the keys to this insight has been the large and random sample of car-to-pedestrian crashes available in the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS). Another key factor has been the proper use of weight factors in order to adjust for outcome-based sampling bias in the accident data. However, a third factor, a priori of unknown importance, has not yet been properly analysed. This is the influence of errors in impact speed estimation. In this study, we derived a statistical model of the impact speed errors for pedestrian accidents present in the GIDAS database. The error model was then applied to investigate the effect of the estimation error on the pedestrian fatality risk as a function of car impact speed. To this end, we applied a method known as the SIMulation-EXtrapolation (SIMEX) method. It was found that the risk curve is fairly tolerant to some amount of random measurement error, but that it does become flattened. It is therefore important that the accident investigations and reconstructions are of high quality to assure that systematic errors are minimised and that the random errors are under control.
Among European Countries, Spain first issued a Standard, UNE 135900:2005, further updated in 2008, that deals with homologation and effectiveness evaluation of road restraint systems components designed to reduce harm for bikers impacting on them. An in depth analysis and critical review of this standard is reported in this paper. Beside a close examination of the standard requirements, numerical models of the crash test stated by the standard have been set up and simulated to study the effects of slight speed and approach angle variations on test results, remaining within tolerance gaps allowed by the standard. Model were validated against experimental data. Together with the expected increasing severity of the impact according with speed, a strong influence of approach angle on injury parameters was found. Possible improvements to the norm, in order to make it more robust, are suggested.
Accident data shows that the vast majority of pedestrian accidents involve a passenger car. A refined method for estimating the potential effectiveness of a technology designed to support the car driver in mitigating or avoiding pedestrian accidents is presented. The basis of the benefit prediction method consists of accident scenario information for pedestrian-passenger car accidents from GIDAS, including vehicle and pedestrian velocities. These real world pedestrian accidents were first reconstructed and the system effectiveness was determined by comparing injury outcome with and without the functionality enabled for each accident. The predictions from Volvo Cars" general Benefit Estimation Model are refined by including the actual system algorithm and sensing models for a relevant car in the simulation environment. The feasibility of the method is proven by a case study on a authentic technology; the Auto Brake functionality in Collision Warning with Full Auto Brake and Pedestrian Detection (CWAB-PD). Assuming the system is adopted by all vehicles, the Case Study indicates a 24% reduction in pedestrian fatalities for crashes where the pedestrians were struck by the front of a passenger car.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance and accuracy of Event Data Recorders (EDRs). The analysis was based on J-NCAP crash tests from 2006"2007, with the corresponding EDR datasets. The pre-crash velocity, maximum delta-V and delta-V versus time history data recorded in the EDRs were compared with the reliable crash test data. The difference between the EDR pre-crash velocity and the laboratory test speed was less than 4 percent. In contrast, in several cases the maximum delta-V and delta-V versus time history data obtained from the EDRs showed uncertainty of measurement in comparisons with the reliable delta-V data. The difference in maximum delta-V in these comparisons was more than 5 percent in 10 of 14 tests and more than 10 percent in 4 of 14 tests. The EDRs underestimated the maximum delta-V in almost all tests. It was also concluded that the calculated acceleration from the EDR delta-V versus time history data showed good agreement with the instrumented accelerometer signal during the collision in almost all tests.
In a first step, we have examined approximately 23 000 single vehicle accidents within the Austrian National Statistics database. In a second step, we considered 15% of all fatal "running off the road" accidents that occurred in Austria in 2003. As a result, two accident categories were specified; "leaving the road without preceding manoeuvre" and "leaving the road with preceding manoeuvre". These two categories can be basically characterised by the vehicle- heading angle and its velocity angle. In this report, we further suggest theoretical approaches for the dimensioning of a safety zone, an area adjacent to the road free of fixed objects or dangerous slopes. We also show the link between the two accident categories mentioned above and the real world accidents analysed in detail. These observations also form the basis for the required length for safety devices. Finally, we summarise accident avoidance strategies.
Relevant accident related factors : risk and frequencies of contributing to road traffic accidents
(2009)
In the course of the European Project TRACE (Traffic Accident Causation in Europe) an attempt was made to analyse the cause of road traffic accidents from a factors' point of view. By literature review the most important independent risk factors for traffic accidents were identified to be speed, alcohol intake, male gender, young age, cell phone use, and fatigue. However, the impact of an accident related factor also depends on its prevalence in traffic and accidents, respectively. Available to the Partners in the TRACE Project were different accident databases. Causally contributing factors found by accident investigations that are most often coded in accident databases are connected to unadapted speed and inattention. Taking into account the risk increase and the frequency of contribution to accidents the conclusion can be drawn that the most relevant factors for accident causation are: "alcohol", "speed", and "inattention and distraction".
The purpose of this work is to investigate the association between the injuries in motorcycle accident and the main accident configurations. The data were provided by a multicentric case-control study MAIDS regarding the risk of crash and injuries of motorcyclists. Chi-square test was used to evaluate the relationship between the variables and a logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association of injury severity with some variables supposed to be predictive factors. Lesive patterns characterized by internal haemorrhages are mainly associated with fronto-lateral crashes, above all in urban areas. Lacerations or abrasions, mainly reported in torso and lower extremities, are mostly associated with single crashes or accidents in queue also for crashes occurred to low speed (< 50 km/h). The severity of injuries is highly associated with impact speed, regardless of the crash configuration. Fractures and haemorrhages play an important role in determining the severity of injuries. The upper extremities are the most frequently traumatised anatomic areas.
Pedestrian accidents are one of the major concerns related with road accidents around the world. Portugal has one of the highest rates of pedestrian fatalities in Europe. In this paper an overview conditions were the pedestrian accidents occurred in Portugal is presented. In the last years, a project related with the pedestrian accidents has run in Portugal for the period 2004-2006 where 603 people died, 2097 have been severely injured and about 17000 slightly injured. Within this project all the pedestrian accidents in this period have been analysed providing global information about a wide range of aspects, since location, driver and pedestrian characteristics, weather and road conditions, among others. In addition, 50 in-depth accidents have been investigated and the data collected according the Pendant methodology. For this in-depth methodology detailed information about the accident has been collected, including injuries, vehicle damage, road conditions and road user- behaviour and actions. An accident reconstruction has been carried for each case including the determination of the speeds and driver actions, and the analysis of the contributing factors for the accident. Depending of the accident complexity, different methodologies have been used to analyse these accident, from the classical analytical equations such as Simms and Woods, to the use of detailed computational pedestrian models as those included in the commercial software- PC-Crash-® or Madymo-®. Also one of the goals of our investigation is the development of multibody models and methodologies for the reconstruction of pedestrian accidents. Some of these tools integrated in the commercial software Cosmos Motion-® are presented. The advantages of the different approaches are compared and discussed for some of the accidents investigated. With these tools the impact speed can be determined from the projection distance with analytical tools or PC-Crash-®, but more complex tools should be used to determine speed from the injuries, what is especially important for fatal accidents. The influence of the vehicle geometry and stiffness characteristics is another aspect analysed, where the influence of the vehicle stiffness has been determined using a combined multibody-finite elements approach within the software Madymo-®.
The national accident statistics demonstrate that the situation of passenger car side impacts is dominated by car to car accidents. Car side to pole impacts are relatively infrequent events. However the importance of car side to pole impacts is significantly increasing with fatal and seriously injured occupants. For the present study the German in-depth database GIDAS (German In-Depth-Accident Study) and the UK based database CCIS (Co-operative Crash Injury Study) were used. Two approaches were undertaken to better understand the scenario of car to pole impacts. The first part is a statistical analysis of passenger car side to pole impacts to describe the characteristics and their importance relevant to other types of impact and to get further knowledge about the main factors influencing the accident outcome. The second part contains a case by case review on passenger cars first registered 1998 onwards to further investigate this type of impact including regression analysis to assess the relationship between injury severity and pole impact relevant factors.