Accidents on Main Rural Highways Related to Speed, Driver, and Vehicle
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1964-07-01
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Abstract:The relationship between speed, characteristics of drivers and vehicles, and accidents is of principal importance to an understanding of highway traffic operations and safety. Many of these relationships have not been clearly understood in the past. To better define these fundamental relationships, 11 States and the Bureau of Public Roads cooperated in a study of accident involvements related to characteristics of normal traffic on 600 miles of main rural highways in the United States. The accident records of nearly 10,000 drivers, speed observations, and interviews with 290,000 drivers using these highways provided the basic data for analysis in the study reported in this publication. The results of this study were summarized in a report to the Congress, The Federal Role in Highway Safety. The present report extends the analysis and provides much greater detail than the earlier summary. In the course of the study, speed and other characteristics such as age, sex, military status, and residence of the driver; types of vehicles; and the horsepower, body style, and age of passenger cars were related to accidents. Involvement rate was the key to the analysis problem. Accident reports, for example, frequently show the estimated travel speeds of vehicles involved in highway accidents. It is not enough, however, to know that a certain number of drivers involved in accidents were traveling at a particular speed; it is also essential to determine how much driving was done at that same speed. Then, by relating the travel speeds of accident-involved drivers and of all drivers, it is possible to determine the hazard associated with specific driving speeds the accident-involvement rate. Simply put, an accident involvement is one driver or one vehicle in one accident. Involvement rate represents the number of involvements per 100 million miles of travel. A description of the procedure used in obtaining the data and the resultant findings relating speed, driver, and vehicle characteristics to reported accidents on main rural highways in the United States are included in this publication. Apart from the accident analysis, some subsidiary analyses of travel patterns and speed also have been included.
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