In order that insurance should be payable in the USSR, all road accidents must be reported to the police. About 96% of all accidents are therefore recorded. However, about 33% of record cards are of no use because of incomplete information. Hardly any police departments have computers and therefore in-depth analysis cannot be carried out. Accidents statistics and statistics regarding vehicles, especially heavy vehicles, in the USSR have been considered a secret and data have been available only to select officials. Accident statistics for the USSR for 1989 have now been published. In the USSR, the traffic police are responsible for traffic management and road design. While some research is carried out in the universities and research institutes, very few of the results have been accepted by officials. The method of the road safety coefficients has been used for design, and the traffic conflicts technique (TCT) was introduced during the 80s. An extensive project was started by Tallinn Technical University. Since a good relationship was found between 10-hour conflict data and 3-year accident data, TCT began to be used in traffic safety projects in Estonia. TCT is also used in Lithuania and some work is also done in Moscow regarding simulated traffic conflicts.
Abstract