Road traffic accident is the most prolific cause of death and injury to which developed countries are exposed. Even if accident rates are continuously decreasing, year by year, everywhere they generally remain at an inacceptable level for both human and economic reasons. Many efforts have been devoted to quantify the influence of various factors on the accident. From this knowledge policies and actions aiming at reducing accident numbers (or at least their severity) have been defined and implemented. Among influencing factors it has been recorded that weather is one of the most sensitive: accident rates in wet conditions are significantly higher than those in dry conditions. This paper addresses this last point. It is based upon a literature survey of published papers concerned with this problem. Results of the analysis with regard to the Excess Risk Coefficient in wet conditions and the relationship between wet road traffic accidents and road surface wet skidding resistance are presented. Then, conclusions and comments are drawn from this analysis. For the covering abstract see ITRD E116488.
Abstract