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Driver crash risk factors and prevalence evaluation (2016-02-28)

The riskiest factors faced by drivers as informed through the first large-scale, crash-only analysis of naturalistic driving data: results indicate that many secondary tasks or activities, particularly resulting from the use of handheld electronic devices, are of detriment to driver safety. The analysis uses a large naturalistic database comprising continuous in situ observations made via multiple onboard video cameras and sensors that gathered information from more than 3,500 drivers across a 3-y period.

The accurate evaluation of crash causal factors can provide fundamental information for effective transportation policy, vehicle design, and driver education. Naturalistic driving (ND) data collected with multiple onboard video cameras and sensors provide a unique opportunity to evaluate risk factors during the seconds leading up to a crash. This paper uses a National Academy of Sciences-sponsored ND dataset comprising 905 injurious and property damage crash events, the magnitude of which allows the first direct analysis (to our knowledge) of causal factors using crashes only. The results show that crash causation has shifted dramatically in recent years, with driver-related factors (i.e., error, impairment, fatigue, and distraction) present in almost 90% of crashes. The results also definitively show that distraction is detrimental to driver safety, with handheld electronic devices having high use rates and risk.

Drivers increase their crash risk nearly tenfold when they get behind the wheel while observably angry, sad, crying, or emotionally agitated, according to Virginia Tech Transportation Institute researchers writing in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Drivers more than double their crash risk when they choose to engage in distracting activities that require them to take their eyes off the road, such as using a handheld cell phone, reading or writing, or using touchscreen menus on a vehicle instrument panel. And, according to the institute’s research, drivers engage in some type of distracting activity more than 50 percent of the time they are driving.

Virginia Tech Transportation Institute researchers used results from the Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Study, the largest light-vehicle naturalistic driving study ever conducted with more than 3,500 participants across six data collection sites in the United States.

The study represents the largest naturalistic crash database available to date, with more than 1,600 verified crash events ranging in severity from low, such as tire and curb strikes, to severe, including police-reportable crashes.

Traveling well above the speed limit creates about 13 times the risk, and driver performance errors such as sudden or improper braking or being unfamiliar with a vehicle or roadway have an impact on individual risk.

Researchers found several factors previously thought to increase driver risk, including applying makeup or following a vehicle too closely, actually had a lower prevalence in the naturalistic driving study, meaning they were minimally present or were not present at all in the crashes analyzed.

Factors such as interacting with a child in the rear seat of a vehicle were found to have a protective effect, or had a risk lower than the base risk value.

See also
Survey reveals driver behaviours, fears and fantasies (2013-10-03)
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Talking and texting while driving in the United States and Europe (11/06/2012)
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In an average year 30 million Americans drive drunk - 10 million drive impaired by illicit drugs (30/12/2010)
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For more information
PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Driver crash risk factors and prevalence evaluation using naturalistic driving data
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Vitginia Tech
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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MDN