Accidents in road transportation

In road transportation, the driver controls large amounts of energy. From elementary physics we know that there is a linear increase in the kinetic energy with the weight of the vehicle and a quadratic increase with its velocity. These basic facts show up in the accident statistics. In Norway, traffic accidents account for about a third of the fatalities at work (see Section 5.4). Traffic accidents in general constitute a significant public-health problem. Swedish estimates show that out of 100 inhabitants born in 1956, about fifty will be injured in a traffic accident and about one will die from it (England et ai, 1998). Traffic accidents reduce the expected lifespan by half a year. 

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Fatal Non-driving Accidents in Road Transport of Hazardous Liquids Cases with Review on Finnish Procedure for Investigating Serious Accidents Within Work System... 

External factors affect the probability of an accident. In fixed installations (such as chemical plants, storage rooms, warehouses and reprocessing sites) natural events such as floods or extreme weather as well as, for example, power cuts may lead to an uncontrolled release of chemicals. The risk of chemical accidents during road transport depends on factors such as traffic density, road conditions and speed limits the effects depend on where an accident occurs (WHO, 1995). 

Because road transportation of dangerous chemicals is expensive, in order to purse economic benefits, many transport enterprises without necessary permits still risk carrying out dangerous chemicals, overloading is common, which increase the possibility of accident in highway transportation of dangerous chemicals. 

However, increased use of road tunnels is raising safety concerns. Accidents in road tunnels may result in severe damages to the transportation network and in the loss of human lives. Taking into account the major road tunnel accidents that took place towards the end of the twentieth century there is an on-going effort to improve safety conditions (Kirytopoulos et al., 2010). 

Hale, A. R., J. Stoop, and J. Hommels. Human Error Models as Predictors of Accident Scenarios for Designers in Road Transport Systems. Ergonomics 33, no. 10-11 (1990) 1377-1387. 

Only the accidents rated with 5 stars (most complete information) are used for this research. In total 260 accidents were shown as 5-star accidents. From these 260 accidents, 91 occurred between 1995 and 2002. In these 91 accidents, 21 accidents involved transport by road, water, rail, or air. As those accidents did not impact on the chemical process industry they were excluded from the analysis. The 70 remaining accidents were distributed all over the world as can be seen from Figure 12. Please note that this figure does not represent the geographical distribution of all accidents in the world, it merely represents a sub selection of FACTS accidents. 

Road transport accidents are a common cause of death or injury at work and internal site roads should be designed to avoid blind corners and junctions. Consideration should also be given to access for lifting equipment used in maintenance and construction. 

Several studies were devoted to the assessment of passive fire protection performances in the framework of fixed installations. Technical standards and data of bonfire tests are thus available in the literature concerning the use and the optimal specifications for both coating and PRVs in fixed tanks (Droste Schoen 1988). However, less attention was dedicated to the analysis of the performances of such devices in the specific accidental scenarios that may take place during the road and rail transportation of LPG. It is well known that in road and rail accidents severe fire engulfrnent or impingement may take place, while external cooling due to rescue teams or fire brigades may be widely delayed... 

The analysis of second order interdependencies and interdependencies further out in the chain of events or consequences can be analyzed much the same as the first order interdependencies. This means that we may reveal new location-specific interdependencies fiwm the functional interdependencies, and also events that should be further investigated, e.g., as an accident scenario itself In Figure 4, we see that the roads can be affected if there is a loss of ICT services. This is due to a possible loss of control with traffic lights, which then may cause traffic jams. In addition, no railway transport may increase the road traffic further. Hypothetical speaking, a traffic jam may cause a bridge to collapse due to overload, which may indicate location-specific interdependencies between road transport and the bridge. However, in this example, we focus on the functional interdependencies resulting fiwm the first location-specific interdependencies. 

Exposure is an important dimension in road traffic fhat refers to the amount of travel in which accidents may occur. The more we travel on roads, the higher the probabdity of an accident to occur. Without traffic or mobility, there will be no accidents and no road safety problems. Many studies show that there is a correlation between vehicle trafEc volume and the total number of accidents. Moreover, traffic volume (mobility) is one of key issues, which is needed to promote the sustainability of transport in any country. 

The rapid increase of population in ASEAN countries has caused economic and social problems. The changes in urbanisation in recent decades have also led to increased traffic congestion in urban centres. This leads to an increase in traffic accidents on road networks that are not designed for the current volumes and types of traffic. The irregular increase of the population in urban areas with limited facilities has affected the balance between the supply and demand of transport in the ASEAN countries. Figure 4.4 shows that as urbanisation increases, the traffic risk (fatalities per vehicle) in most countries decreases. This can be probably explained by the fact that the increase in urbanisation has also led to improved road safety facihties in urban areas, better medical recovery, lower speeds, and better commuiucations. 

Department of Trade and Industry figures suggest that up to ten times as many people attend Accident and Emergency Departments of hospitals with injuries sustained in falls on the footways and other transport areas as with injuries sustained in road traffic accidents. 

National accident statistics and verbal accident descriptions were retrieved from the Finnish Federation of Accident Insurance Institution s (FAII) database. The FAII database allows restricted access to researchers. An open coding approach (Strauss and Corbin 1998) was used to summarize and synthesize the accident statistics and descriptions data. The analysis covered all accidents that occurred to road transportation sector employees somewhere other than in truck cabs, and which were reported to insurance companies in Finland in 2006. 

Fig. 4 Accidents (n = 2,880) in the Finnish road transport sector in 2006 classified by the physical specific activity to which they were related...

Svenson, O., Risks of road transportation in a psychological perspective. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 10, 267-280 (1978)... 

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