Analysis of factors influencing the vehicle damage level in fatal truck-related accidents and differences in rural and urban areas

Accidents involving large trucks very often end up with deadly consequences. Innocent people getting killed are acknowledged globally as one of the traffic safety greatest problems and challenges. While risk factors on truck-related accidents have been researched extensively, the impact on fatalities has received little or no attention, especially considering rural and urban areas, respectively. In this study, the generalized ordered logit model was used in Stata 11.0 to explore the complex mechanism of truck-related accidents in different areas. Data were obtained from The Trucks in Fatal Accidents database (TIFA). The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) indicates that the model used in this paper is superior to traditional ordered logit model. The results showed that 9 variables affect the vehicle damage level in a fatal crash in both areas but with different directions. Furthermore, 23 indicators significantly affect the disabling damage in the same manner. Also, there are factors that are significant solely in one area and not in the other: 12 in rural and 2 in urban areas.

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