Fatalities, crash analysis

Farmer, C.M., Lund, A.K., Trempel, R.E., and Braver, E. 1997. Fatal crashes of passenger vehicles before and after adding antilock braking systems. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 29, 745-757. 

Jenness, J. W., Jenkins, F., and Zador, P. 2011. Motorcycle conspicuity and the effect of fleet DRL Analysis of two-vehicle fatal crashes in Canada and the United States 2001-2007. Washington, DC NHTSA. Report No. DOT HS 811 505. 

Cheung, I. and McCartt, A.T. 2010. Declines in fatal crashes of older drivers Changes in crash risk and survivability. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43, 666-674. 

The most rigorous method to evaluate the contribution of belts to fatality reduction was developed by Evans (1986). With this method, known as the "double pair comparison" method, Evans first identified all fatal crashes involving cars with multiple occupants (where the driver was not necessarily the one who was killed). He then compared the fatality likelihood for drivers with and without belts relative to the likelihood of fatality of the other occupant with and without belts. The beauty of this approach is that there is no need for exposure measure, and hence no need to be concerned about exposure bias. Using the U.S. national Fatal Analysis Reporting System which documents every fatal crash in the U.S., Evans estimated that the... 

Finally, although we call all pedestrians vulnerable road users an age-sensitive aspect of vulnerability is frailty. Older people are more frail, and when injured are less likely to survive -either the injury itself or the post-crash treatment. This is reflected in the casualty rates, but should be more pronounced if the analysis is conducted separately on fatal crashes. Keall (1995), therefore, also conducted separate analyses of fatality and severe injury rates and the results of these analyses are plotted in Figure 15-6. These analyses further differentiated the older pedestrians from the rest of the pedestrian population. In addition, the analyses showed... 

In 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) completed a study of 182 fatal-to-the-driver truck accidents to investigate the probable cause of the accidents. While the study was designed under the assumption that most fatal heavy truck crashes may be related to alcohol and other drugs, it was found that the most frequently determined probable cause was fatigue (12). A 1993 analysis of the Fatal Accident Report System (FARS) also suggested that truck driver fatigue is a contributing factor in about 30% of heavy truck accidents. 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). (2012). Traffic safety facts 2010— a compilation of motor vehicle crash data from the fatality analysis reporting system and the general estimates system. Report DOT HS 811 659, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, U.S. Department of Transportation. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) http //www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov (accessed September 15, 2010) provides access to data of vehicle crashes on public roadways in the United States that involve fatalities. Queries can be run comparing a number of crash factors, such as the enviromnent, participants, and vehicles. Results can be exported as TXT tiles. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration http //www.nhtsa.gov/ (accessed September 14, 2010) provides data on crashes through databases, such as the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (PARS) and the Crashworthiness Data System. 

Jocksch, H.C. 1993. Velocity change and fatality risk in a crash. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 25, 103-104. 

Li et al. (2003) used the US Fatality Analysis Reporting System (EARS) and a national probability sample of all crashes (both non-casualty and casualty) to compute the role of frailty in older-driver crashes. After due statistical correction, the authors reported that older drivers (and especially older female drivers ) overrepresentation in fatalities could be explained mainly by fragility, accounting for around 60-90% of the fatalities. 

Another caveat is the definition of a crash and or injury. For example, one of the more common definitions, used in the U.S. Fatal Analysis System, for a fatal traffic accident is a police-reported crash involving a motor vehicle in transport on a trafficway in which at least one person dies within 30 days of the crash. (NHTSA, 2000). Not all coimtries limit recorded crashes in their data files to ones occurring on public roads (by including crashes off the road... 

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