Southeastern United States fatal crash study

Details

• Creators:
  Dixon, Karen
• Corporate Creators:
  Georgia Institute of Technology
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Accident Causes Collisions Fatalities Highway Factors In Accidents Seat Belts
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-GA-05-9815 ; 9815
• Resource Type:
  Research Paper
• Corporate Publisher:
  Georgia. Dept. of Transportation
• Abstract:
  A significant safety issue in the United States is the substantial number of vehicle related crashes. The number of fatal
  
  crashes in the southeastern portion of the U.S. (States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North
  
  Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) is disproportionately higher than those for the entire country. In general, the
  
  eight states collectively report approximately 26-percent of the total annual number of fatal automobile-related crashes in
  
  the U.S. On average, the southeastern states experience an additional 30 fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled than
  
  the U.S. average. The Federal Highway Administration and the eight southeastern states initiated a joint research effort
  
  for the region to study this observed over-representation of fatal crashes.
  
  Findings of the study suggest that improved features such as widening shoulders, enhancing delineation, and protecting
  
  the clear zone would substantially reduce these fatal crashes. Some of the researchers recommended that additional
  
  procedures and policies may be an appropriate countermeasure for wide-scale improvements. Countermeasures (physical
  
  as well as political) were explicitly recommended to address two-lane rural roads, safety restraint use and fixed-object
  
  crashes.
  
  A supplemental finding was the presence of extensive pavement edge drop-offs for fatal crash sites in at least two of
  
  the participating states. As this observation occurred as a result of field inspection and was not initially identified as a
  
  target problem, it was not studied in great detail for this research effort but merits special comment since it is potentially a
  
  significant finding of the study.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:92d7ef549a836c283337922b6ae443f01a0c9a53fb2e5c140d697754495cb91b
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/16513/dot_16513_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 510.28 KB ]