More than 3,700 passenger vehicle occupants died in crashes involving large trucks in 1994. To better understand how and why these crashes occur, crash type analysis was applied to a 50 percent systematic sample of the 3,178 fatal large truck-passenger vehicle crashes in 1993 from the Fatal Accident Reporting System. Odds ratios (OR) and their 95 percent confidence intervals were estimated to identify associated roadway, environmental, vehicular, and driver factors. The two most common crash types, oncoming (head-on) and ran traffic control (vehicle required to stop or yield fails to do so), accounted for 61 percent of all crashes; these crash types typically occur on undivided roads (ORs = 7.1 and 1.4, respectively). Slippery road conditions (OR = 2.4), hills (OR = 1.6), and curves (OR = 5.3) were significant risk factors for oncoming crashes. The next three most common crash types were stop/stopping (stopped or slowing vehicle is struck from behind), run down (vehicle strikes another moving in same direction at unimpeded speed), and lane change (vehicle moves into an already occupied lane); these crashes were significantly more likely to occur on divided roads (ORs on undivided roads 0.27, 0.09, and 0.02, respectively). Reduced light conditions were a significant risk factor for stop/stopping (OR = 2.0) and run down (OR = 4.8) crashes. Countermeasures to reduce the risk of truck-car crashes include modifying the structure of trucks to make them less likely to inflict injuries in collisions with other vehicles, making trucks more conspicuous, improving truck brakes, and improving enforcement of existing highway safety laws. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting