On average, the number of injury fog accidents accounted for about 1% of the total number of injury accidents in the Netherlands, in the 1970-1991 period. The lack of traffic safety on foggy days in the 1983-1985 period is characterized as follows: (1) The occurrence of injury accidents was not more than on non-foggy days; (2) There was an increase in both number and seriousness of fog accidents on roads with higher speed limits; (3) There were a greater number of single vehicle fog accidents; (4) There were an increasing number of fog accidents, where more than two vehicles were involved, and more victims were involved in the accidents; (5) The number of fog accidents did not decrease on successive days; and (6) the highest percentage of fog accidents took place during the morning peak (3,04%). It is concluded that serious fog accidents occurred, especially during routine travel and on through roads with comparatively high traffic flows, when the fog was patchy. There were no driver information systems to give drivers timely and adequate information on fog. One of the recommendations is to use electronics to provide fog warning systems. Priority should be given to those motorways where fog is most likely to occur.
Abstract