Focus Crash Types and Risk Factors

Project Description Systemic safety improvements, when selected and targeted appropriately, provide a tremendous opportunity to proactively reduce crashes. This is particularly useful for crash types and situations that are somewhat disperse in their occurrence (e.g., lane departure crashes on low volume roads, pedestrian crashes at intersections in an urban environment, crossing path crashes at unsignalized intersections in rural areas). State and local agencies are starting to embrace the benefit of systemic safety improvements, particularly now that systemic improvements are specifically identified in MAP-21. However, additional guidance is needed to help these agencies select and target their improvements to make the most of limited funds. As such, detailed information is needed on the crashes and contributing factors that are best targeted by systemic improvements and the types of locations and situations where these crashes occur. The purpose of this effort is to develop this detailed information. This analysis will focus on the event data in the NDS including information on crash severity and type (e.g. rollover, as well as road characteristics (e.g., number of travel lanes, weather conditions, alignment, etc.). Using the specified data, we plan on utilizing statistical methods to relate the various road characteristics to crash severity and type. In doing so, we will be able to identify road characteristics that are associated with higher crash severity (so called "risk factors"). Having identified risk factors for crash types and severity, we will subsequently be able to identify road segments where the risk factors are present thereby identifying appropriate areas for systemic safety improvements. Data Request Scope This dataset contains data for 1,531 crash or near crash events. Data Specification The data set consists of the following data elements. eventID eventSeverity1 eventSeverity2 preIncidentManeuver eventNature1 incidentType1 crashSeverity1 incidentType2 crashSeverity2 airbagDeployment vehicleRollover driverSeatbeltUse infrastructure visualObstructions lighting weather surfaceCondition trafficFlow contigTravelLanes throughTravelLanes relationToJunction intersectionInfluence alignment grade locality constructionZone numberOfOtherMotorists numberOfObjectsAnimals motorist2Type motorist3Type precipitatingEvent trafficControl eventID driverSeatBeltUse driverAge travelSpeed travelLane signPresence trafficControlDevice regulatorySignsNearSite schoolZoneSignsNearSite warningSignsNearSite weatherCondition weatherInfluence rollOver driverUsingCellPhonePriorToCrash lineOfSightClarity lineOfSightObstruction crashType preImpactIntent trafficSignalOperation activityPriorToCrash injurySeverity --