Data from NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and State Data System ( SDS) were used to analyze the crash experience of ABS -equipped and non-ABS-equipped vehicles for passenger cars (PCs) and light trucks and vans (LTVs). This study updates the results of work published by NHTSA in 1995 using FARS data for 1995 -1996 and SDS data for Florida, Maryland, Missouri, and Pennsylvania for 1995 -1996. These states were chosen for the study as each, for the period shown, recorded the vehicle identification number (VIN), which is used to determine if specific makes/models of vehicles are equipped with ABS. As with the earlier work, separate analyses were conducted for PCs and LTVs, for each type of ABS system (rear and all wheel), for each of several crash types and each type of road surface (favorable and unfavorable). This analysis also crashed considered crashes involving pedestrians in addition to the four crash types studied earlier. The findings for PCs study also presents a summary from a review of the literature on the crash experience of DRL-equipped are similar to the earlier results, i.e., a significant reduction in avoiding non-fatal frontal crashes was found. Side impacts and run-off-road crashes on unfavorable surfaces, however, were no longer predicted to increase for PCs. In addition, decreases were found for crashes involving PCs and pedestrians. For all wheel LTVs, increases in fatal rollover and side impact crashes were found. For rear -wheel LTVs, an increase was not found for frontal crashes, as was shown in the previous study. (Author/publisher)
Abstract