There have been conflicting reports on the relationship between resurfacing and accident rate. According to a proposed explanatory model: 1) on rainy days accident rate is higher on worn and rutted than on less worn pavements; 2) on days with little or no rain accident rate is lower on worn and rutted roads; 3) taken together, 1 and 2 result in lower average accident rate on worn pavements. Object of tove (traffic safety and road surface properties) project has been to elucidate relationship between pavement surface conditions and traffic safety. Preliminary analysis of comprehensive data which however excluded best and worst pavements shows that: 1) average accident rate is lower for `poorer' than for `good' pavement surfaces; 2) this difference is due to lower accident rate on days with little or medium precipitation; 3) on days with more than 10 mm precipitation, accident rate is higher on `poorer' surfaces. Final analysis shows that: 1) `base' accident rate (on days with little or no precipitation) is lower on `poorer' than on better surfaces; 2) increase in accident rate with increasing precipitation is steeper for `poorer' surfaces. possible explanations are: 3) ruts `channel' traffic, leading to less lateral variation; 4) a worn surface makes drivers more observant of surface; 5) driving on worn surfaces might increase driver attention thus reducing accidents. For comments on this paper, see C 6527.
Samenvatting