Sonstige
A lack of representative European accident data to aid the development of safety policy, regulation and technological advancement is a major obstacle in the European Union. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety and is also needed to support the development of further actions by stakeholders. This short-paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to partly fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect fatal crash data under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using retrospective detailed police reports (n=1,300). The typical level of detail recorded was a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of fatal crashes to be interpreted to provide information on a range of causal factors and events surrounding the collisions.
NASS: the glass is half full
(2007)
The National Accident Sampling System (NASS) was born in the late 1970s. It was based on a substantial amount of experience and analysis of what was needed in the United States to understand the safety challenges of our highways. This work also showed how to collect high quality and useful crash data efficiently. Unfortunately, when Ronald Reagan - a President who believed in limited government - was elected, any hope of full funding for NASS was lost. The concept of 75 teams investigating about 18,000 serious crashes in detail annually was never realized. The system got up to 50 teams, then was cut to 36, and finally to 24 teams investigating fewer than a quarter of the originally anticipated number of crashes per year. Despite this, the NASS investigations provide a rich source of data, collected according to a sophisticated statistical sampling system to facilitate detailed national estimates of road casualties on our nation- highways and their causes. In addition, changes have been made in recent years to increase the number of more serious crashes of recent model vehicles to make the results more relevant to improving vehicle safety. A recent, detailed examination of hundreds of rollovers has provided considerable insight into rollover casualties and into what can be done to reduce them. Some of these results will be presented that show the value of the NASS system. Our experience with NASS and the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) suggests a number of improvements that could be made in the United States" crash data systems. It also provides justification for a doubling or tripling of our national expenditures on crash data collection.
The objective of the study is to measure the risk of pedestrian and bicyclist in urban traffic through an analysis of real-world accident data. The kinematics and injury mechanisms for both pedestrian and bicyclists are investigated to find the correlation of injury risks with injury related parameters. For this purpose, firstly 338 cases are selected as a sample from an IVAC accident database based on the In-depth Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha of China. A statistic measurement of the fatality and serious injury risks with respect to impact speed was carried out by logistic regression analysis. Secondly, 12 pedestrian and 12 bicyclist accidents were further selected for reconstruction with MADYMO program. A comparative analysis was conducted based on the results from accident analysis and computer reconstructions for the injury risk, head impact conditions and dynamic response of pedestrians and bicyclists. The results indicate that bicyclists suffered lower risks of severe injuries and fatalities compared with pedestrians. The risks of AIS 3+ injury and fatality are 50% for pedestrians at impact speeds of 53.2 km/h and 63.3 km/h, respectively, while that for bicyclists at 62.5 km/h and 71.1 km/h, respectively. The findings could have a contribution to get a better understanding of pedestrians" and bicyclists" exposures in urban traffic in China, and provide background knowledge to generate strategies for pedestrian protection.
In line with the new definition introduced by the European Commission (EC), the number of seriously injured road casualties in Germany for 2014 is assessed in this study. The number of MAIS3+ casualties is estimated by two different methodological approaches. The first approach is based on data from the German Inâ€Depth Accident Study (GIDAS), which is closely related to the German Road Traffic Accident Statistics. The second approach is based on data from the German TraumaRegister DGU-® (TRâ€DGU), which includes many more hospitals but not all MAIS3+ injuries.
In India, heavy truck crashes on national highways account for a number of fatalities. But due to lack of in-depth crash data, detailed analysis is not possible to determine injury mechanisms, and to identify infrastructure, vehicle and human factors affecting these crashes. Over the past two years, researchers in India have established a crash investigation network, with the co-operation of the police and hospitals, to conduct crash investigations and in-depth crash data collection on national highways in the state of Tamil Nadu. This pioneering effort has resulted in the development of a heavy truck crash investigation methodology, the outcome of which is scientific and reliable crash data that has been able to provide good insight into truck crashes and their causes. This paper explains the need for truck crash investigations, the methodology, conclusions of the data analyzed up to date, and the need to focus on truck driver working conditions.
The National Highways Development Project in India is aimed at upgrading over 12,000 km of national highways from 2-lane undivided roads to 4-lane divided roads. With nearly 40% of fatal crashes being reported on national highways, the effect of this project on road safety needs to be assessed. Researchers carried out on-site crash investigations and in-depth crash data collection for a period of 45 to 60 days on four 2-lane undivided highways and a 4-lane divided highway. Based on 76 crashes examined, researchers found a shift of crash pattern from head-on collisions on undivided 2- lane highways to front-rear collisions on divided 4-lane highways. This paper presents the methodology, analysis of crashes examined, and the critical safety problems identified for greater consideration in future highway development projects. This paper also highlights the need and significance of in-depth crash investigations to understand local traffic conditions and problems in India.
Road accidents are typically analyzed to address influences of human, vehicle, and environmental (primarily infrastructure) factors. A new methodology, based on a "Venn diagram" analysis, gives a broader perspective on the probable factors, and combinations of factors, contributing both to the occurrence of a crash and to sustaining injuries in that crash. The methodology was applied to 214 accidents on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Factors contributing to accidents and injuries were addressed. The major human factors influencing accidents on this roadway were speeding (30%) and falling asleep (29%), while injuries were primarily due to lack of seat belt use (46%). The leading infrastructure factor for injuries was impact with a roadside manmade structure (28%), and the main vehicle factor for injuries was passenger compartment intrusion (73%). This methodology can help identify effective vehicle and infrastructure-related solutions for preventing accidents and mitigating injuries in India.
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-®.
Die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) hat 2009 eine Pilotstudie initiiert, an der sich vier Autobahnmeistereien aus Niedersachsen und Nordrhein-Westfalen beteiligt haben und deren Schlussbericht nun vorliegt. Grund dafür waren die immer stärker spürbaren psychischen Belastungen, die sich aus der gefährlichen und stressreichen Arbeit ergeben, die die Frauen und Männer in der orangefarbenen Arbeitskleidung auf der Straße verrichten. Bundesweit kommen nach Angaben des Bundesverbandes Deutscher Straßenwärter jedes Jahr acht bis zehn Straßenwärter ums Leben. Die Zahl der Verletzten ist hoch. Zu der Arbeit in unmittelbarer Nähe des fließenden Verkehrs auf der Fahrbahn oder im direkt angrenzenden Seitenbereich von Straßen und Autobahnen kommen Belastungen durch die immer knapper werdende Personalausstattung der Meistereien und den daraus resultierenden Überstunden hinzu, besonders im Winter. Diese ziehen oft gesundheitliche Einschränkungen und persönliche Krisen nach sich. Probleme, mit denen sich viele Kollegen allein gelassen fühlen. Der "Burn-out" ist praktisch schon vorprogrammiert. Das Ergebnis der Studie muss realistisch betrachtet werden. Die angebotenen Trainingseinheiten können die Belastungen der Straßenwärter, denen sie Tag für Tag ausgesetzt sind, zwar nicht weiter senken, aber sie können lernen, mit den daraus resultierenden Beanspruchungen deutlich besser fertig zu werden. Vor allem, indem sie miteinander und mit ihren Vorgesetzten sprechen und die Last des Einzelnen nötigenfalls auf mehrere Schultern verteilen.