In this research the association between commercial motor vehicle drivers' medical conditions and crash severity is studied. Some aspects of medical condition were considered. To the author's knowledge, no study has ever isolated this association. The severity of a crash was measured by the total number of victims (injured and dead). Nonlinear regression model (specifically, Poisson and negative binomial) which incorporated, simultaneously, information on drivers' characteristics, crash circumstances and health status, in order to isolate the association between health status and crash severity was estimated. The results showed that crashes of truck drivers with binocular vision problems and bus drivers with hypertension are more severe than those of healthy drivers. No other medical condition considered in this study was significantly associated with crash severity. Many variables describing crash circumstances were also significant.
Abstract