The aim of this research was to provide a better understanding of urban road accident causation. The work comprised a comprehensive 'in-depth' study of the contributory factors in urban road accidents, with particular emphasis on the role of human factors. The study examined 1,254 injury accidents which occurred during 1988 in an area of North Leeds outside the central business district. The study involved: collecting basic accident and background information; interviewing participants; visiting the accident sites; assessing contributory factors; linking all the data sources; analysing all the information; and interpreting the results and outlining policy implications. Contributory factors were assigned to all accident participants, whether or not they agreed to be interviewed. A multi-level coding scheme was developed for this purpose, with each level representing a link in the causal chain. Substantial differences were found in the contributory factors assigned to different age, sex and road user groups. Of particular interest was that only 33 percent of adult pedestrians and 11 percent of child pedestrians were found to be innocent victims of others' mistakes and that judgement errors were more frequently coded for females than for males. Fault decreased consistently with age from 88 percent at fault in the 0-4 age group to 39 percent in the 50-59 age group, and then rose to 55 percent among those aged 60 or over.
Abstract