Inside urban areas some accidents are occurring between right turning trucks and bicyclists or pedestrians. The consequences are exceedingly severe if the truck runs over the vulnerable road user. This paper will help to improve the knowledge how these accidents happen. Matched to this countermeasures are shown and discussed to reduce the number and the severity of these accidents. This contribution is a compendium of the research assignment of the BASt (German Federal Highway Research Institute) given to DEKRA Accident Research named “Endangering of bicyclists and pedestrians at intersections by right turning trucks”. It includes remarks on the European regulations regarding the protection of pedestrians and bicyclists in case of collisions with trucks. This is followed by an overview of the existing standard of the knowledge documented in the literature. It includes among other things analysis of official statistics, in-depth accident analysis and description of measure-ments to solve the problem. The study contains the results of the in-depth analysis of 90 accidents with involved right turning trucks versus a pedestrian or bicyclist. Outcomes are coming from the pre-crash phase (e.g. kind of movement), and the impact (e.g. location of collision, speed and angle). One of the main problems is the insufficient field of view (blind spot) of the truck driver during the pre-crash phase. Results of blind spot analysis of two trucks with two different mirror systems will show possible improvements. The contribution will finish with a description of the developed safety concept concerning the analysed situation between right turning trucks and pedestrians or bicyclists. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting