Too Close to Home? An Investigation into Crash Proximity Relative to Driver Residences in South Carolina

A national survey by a major insurance company on 11,000 policy holders in 2001 found that over 50% of crashes polled occurred within 5 miles from the residences of those involved in the crash. This paper investigates the proximity of traffic crashes from driver residences and how this relationship correlates with trip lengths. The lack of academic literature with regard to crash proximity to homes is one of the primary motivations for this paper. Previous studies identified in the literature were based on Euclidean distance rather than network distance. The 2001 insurance survey relied on self-reported distance data which could be either over-estimated or under-estimated. This research takes advantage of the network and spatial analysis capabilities of a geographic information system (GIS) to analyze crash location proximity to drivers’ residences. Driver data from nearly 700,000 crashes in South Carolina from 2007 to 2012 are used in the analysis. The analysis results suggest that approximately 35% of crashes occur within 3.5 miles of the driver’s residence. This percentage varies significantly from the survey results reported in 2001 which indicate that over 50% of crashes occur within 5 miles of the driver’s residence. The crash proximity distributions do not vary based on severity, gender, year, or fault. At 5 miles or less from home, the frequency distribution of crash proximity is lower compared to the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) auto trip frequency distribution. At 20 and 30 miles from home, risk ratios for women are 10% and 41% greater than risk ratios for men. Overall, the findings of this research suggest that, considering only trip length, the probability of being involved in a fatal or injury crash is lower for trips closer to home. Future research could possibly identify factors that contribute to the lower probability of crashes occurring closer to home.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB20 Standing Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Brown, Kweku
  • Sarasua, Wayne A
  • Ogle, Jennifer Harper
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash injuries; Fatalities; Geographic information systems; Network analysis (Planning); Residential location; Spatial analysis; Traffic crashes; Trip length
• Uncontrolled Terms: Proximity
• Geographic Terms: South Carolina
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01593452
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-6874
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 10 2016 4:07PM