The New In-Depth, At-the-Scene, Accident Investigation Database in India

India’s staggering record of traffic fatalities has created an urgent need to understand, and mitigate, the factors involved in these crashes. But understanding relies on having quality, in-depth data available for analysis. To provide such data, a consortium of vehicle manufacturers and researchers, with support from the police, developed a methodology for investigating and recording crash and injury details for road traffic accidents occurring on South Indian highways. This paper describes key features of the India-centric data collection methodology, which uses established techniques to make it compatible with studies in countries such as the USA, UK, and Germany while addressing issues unique to India. The paper also offers recent findings from this ongoing study. A total of 377 accident investigations carried out in Coimbatore District (Tamil Nadu) over a period of two years involved analysis of 150 fatal crashes (with 167 rider/occupant and pedestrian fatalities), 147 serious-injury crashes (219 injuries), 45 minor-injury crashes (65 injuries), and 35 no-injury crashes. Of the 377 accidents investigated, 40% were fatal, 39% were serious, and the majority of the impacts were head-on frontals (31%) followed by front-side collisions (15%). Significantly, motorcycle collisions with trucks, cars and buses constituted 34% of the accidents.