Fatal and nonfatal crash trends at intersections were investigated using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) General Estimate System (GES) representing data years 2005 through 2009. Although crash data at all intersections is reported, analysis focuses on those crashes that occur at intersections with properly functioning traffic control lights. The crash components explored include: * Red light running violation; * Manner of multiple vehicle collisions; * Crashes with moving objects; and * State of occurrence. Overall results show that although the number of fatal and nonfatal crashes at intersections has decreased over the last several years, the change is in proportion to the overall motor vehicle traffic crash trends. As a percentage of total crashes, crashes at intersections with traffic control lights have been very stable over the last five years of available data. Because the overall number of crashes has been sharply declining over the last several years, the proportion of crashes at intersections is used in this report to adjust for the overall downward crash trend. Over the last five years, the number and percent of fatal crashes involving red light running violations has steadily decreased. The decrease of 256 red light running violation fatal crashes represents 58% of the total decrease in fatal crashes at intersections over this time frame. Because of data limitations, it is not clear if nonfatal crashes have been impacted in the same way. Fatal intersection crashes tend to occur within intersections while nonfatal crashes tend to occur while entering or exiting intersections. In addition, over the last five years the proportion of nonfatal intersection crashes occurring while entering or exiting intersections has slowly been increasing. Many of the other crash variables explored showed very stable findings across the years studied, with the percent of crashes that occur at intersections changing very little from one year to the next. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting