Characteristics of Fatal Road Traffic Accidents on Indian Highways

India’s increasing trend of fatal road accidents has created a vital and urgent need to understand the factors involved in these crashes. This can only be achieved if good quality in-depth data relating to accident causation and injury causation, correlated with vehicle and infrastructure details are available. A consortium of vehicle manufacturers and researchers, with the support from the police, has developed a methodology to investigate road traffic accidents occurring on highways in South India. This is an ongoing study investigating accidents at the scene. This paper describes the methodology developed which is unique to India. The methodology also uses established techniques to make it compatible with studies in the other countries (USA, UK, and Germany). A total of 167 accident investigations have been carried out in the Coimbatore District of the state of Tamil Nadu over a period of one year. Data from crash investigations of 71 fatal accidents involving 80 fatalities (66 vehicle occupants and 14 pedestrians) is analyzed in this paper. Findings from the analyses are presented which provides an understanding of the characteristics of fatal accidents on Indian highways. Fatal accidents account for 43% of all accidents investigated. Motorized two-wheelers (M2Ws) constitute 60% of vehicles with fatal casualties while passenger cars constitute 30%. Majority of the impacts were head-on frontals (35%) followed by pedestrian impacts (18%). M2W collisions with trucks and cars constitute 35% of fatal accidents. Most of the fatal casualties were under 40 years of age. The injury severity (MAIS) ranged from MAIS=3 (21%) to MAIS=6 (10%) while 46% of the casualties suffered fatal injuries at MAIS=4.