Indexing crash worthiness and crash aggressivity by vehicle type.

Crash aggressivity (CA), along with conventional crash worthiness (CW), has been recently studied to deal with the crash incompatibility between vehicles on roads. Clearly, injury severity depends on the attacking ability of striking vehicle as well as the protective ability of struck vehicle. This study proposes a systematic crash-based approach to index CA and CW of various vehicles. The approach deviates from existing methods in three aspects: (a) an explicit definition and specification in the model for CW and CA; (b) Bayesian hierarchical analysis to account for the crash-vehicle two-level data structure; (c) a five-level ordinal model to explicitly consider all levels of crash severity. The case study on major vehicle types illustrated the method and confirmed the consistency of results with previous studies. Both crash worthiness and crash aggressivity significantly vary by vehicle types, in which we identified the dominating effect of vehicle mass, and also highlighted the extraordinary aggressivity of Light Trucks and Vans (LTVs). While it was not surprising to identify least CA and CW of motorcycles, buses were unconventionally found to be less aggressive than other motor vehicles. The method proposed in this research is applicable to detailed crash-based vehicle inspection and evaluation.

[1]  Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson,et al.  Differences in male and female injury severities in sport-utility vehicle, minivan, pickup and passenger car accidents. , 2004, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[2]  T Ernvall,et al.  THE ACCIDENT INVOLVEMENT AND INJURY RISK RATES OF CAR MODELS , 1994 .

[3]  Andrew Thomas,et al.  WinBUGS - A Bayesian modelling framework: Concepts, structure, and extensibility , 2000, Stat. Comput..

[4]  S R Clarke,et al.  Factors contributing to the amount of vehicular damage resulting from collisions between four-wheel drive vehicles and passenger cars. , 2001, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[5]  C J Kahane.  VEHICLE WEIGHT, FATALITY RISK AND CRASH COMPATIBILITY OF MODEL YEAR 1991-99 PASSENGER CARS AND LIGHT TRUCKS , 2003 .

[6]  M C Frick,et al.  Car size or car mass: which has greater influence on fatality risk? , 1992, American journal of public health.

[7]  Mohamed Abdel-Aty,et al.  Analysis and prediction of traffic fatalities resulting from angle collisions including the effect of vehicles' configuration and compatibility. , 2004, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[8]  F P Rivara,et al.  Vehicle mismatch: injury patterns and severity. , 2004, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[9]  Hoong Chor Chin,et al.  Severity of driver injury and vehicle damage in traffic crashes at intersections: a Bayesian hierarchical analysis. , 2008, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[10]  T Ernvall,et al.  LOGISTIC REGRESSION IN COMPARISON OF THE PASSIVE SAFETY OF CAR MODELS , 1995 .

[11]  James K Hammitt,et al.  Safety Impacts of SUVs, Vans, and Pickup Trucks in Two‐Vehicle Crashes , 2003, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[12]  Thomas P Wenzel,et al.  The effects of vehicle model and driver behavior on risk. , 2005, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[13]  Anna Vadeby.  Including driver characteristics in a model of relative collision safety , 2000 .

[14]  Stuart Vaughan Newstead,et al.  THE DEVELOPMENT OF VEHICLE CRASHWORTHINESS RATINGS IN AUSTRALIA , 1996 .

[15]  L Li,et al.  Personal and behavioral predictors of automobile crash and injury severity. , 1995, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[16]  Mohamed Abdel-Aty,et al.  Modeling rear-end collisions including the role of driver's visibility and light truck vehicles using a nested logit structure. , 2004, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[17]  M C Frick,et al.  Mass ratio and relative driver fatality risk in two-vehicle crashes. , 1993, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[18]  E R Braver,et al.  Two-vehicle side impact crashes: the relationship of vehicle and crash characteristics to injury severity. , 1997, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[19]  Robert W Broyles,et al.  Factors associated with the likelihood of injury resulting from collisions between four-wheel drive vehicles and passenger cars. , 2003, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[20]  Mohamed Abdel-Aty,et al.  Configuration Analysis of Two-Vehicle Rear-End Crashes , 2003 .

[21]  Rajesh Subramanian.  Passenger Vehicle Occupant Fatality Rates by Type and Size of Vehicle , 2006 .

[22]  J Broughton.  The theoretical basis for comparing the accident record of car models. , 1996, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[23]  Mohamed Abdel-Aty,et al.  Multilevel data and bayesian analysis in traffic safety. , 2010, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[24]  Stuart Vaughan Newstead,et al.  RATING THE AGGRESSIVITY OF AUSTRALIAN PASSENGER VEHICLES TOWARDS OTHER VEHICLE OCCUPANTS AND UNPROTECTED ROAD USERS , 1998 .

[25]  Mohamed Abdel-Aty,et al.  INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF LIGHT TRUCK VEHICLE PERCENTAGES ON REAR-END FATAL TRAFFIC CRASHES , 2004 .

[26]  Hoong Chor Chin,et al.  Disaggregate Propensity Study on Red Light Running Crashes Using Quasi-Induced Exposure Method , 2009 .

[27]  Marc Fredette,et al.  Safety impacts due to the incompatibility of SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks in two-vehicle collisions. , 2008, Accident; analysis and prevention.