The speeds of vehicles which are involved in fatal accidents

This article describes an exploratory analysis of a database of fatal accidents held at the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), UK. The aim was to investigate the involvement of speed in these accidents and it was found that the risk of drivers being involved in a fatal accident increased the faster they travelled. Speed estimates are provided to TRL from police files. Breaking the speed limit is more frequent in urban areas but inappropriate speed (within the speed limit) is a more common rural problem. Speeding above the limit increases the risk of accident involvement. Younger drivers were heavily represented amongst the high-speed drivers, and males were more likely than females to be travelling fast when involved in an accident. Cars involved in night time accidents tended to be travelling faster than in the day. In conclusion it is suggested that policies aimed at reducing extreme speeding would have an effect on single vehicle accidents involving young males at night but would affect less other types of fatal accident.