SPEED AND ACCIDENTS -PHASE 1, INTERIM REPORT

IT MAY BE THAT ACCIDENTS SHOULD BE BLAMED NOT ON ABSOLUTE VALUES OF SPEED BUT ON THE EXTENT TO WHICH ACCIDENT-INVOLVED VEHICLES DEVIATE FROM THE AVERAGE SPEED OF SURROUNDING TRAFFIC FLOW. THE HYPOTHESIS TESTED IN THIS STUDY IS THAT A U-SHAPED RELATIONSHIP EXISTS BETWEEN ACCIDENT-INVOLVEMENT RATE AND SPEED DEVIATION FROM AVERAGE SURROUNDING TRAFFIC. ACCIDENT AND SPEED DATA IN INDIANA WERE STUDIED. DIGITAL COMPUTERS, DETECTORS, AND METHODS USED IN THE STUDY ARE DESCRIBED. MORE THAN 100,000 SPEED OBSERVATIONS WERE MADE AND 73 ACCIDENTS INVESTIGATED. THE HYPOTHESIS STUDIED APPEARS TO BE VALID. /HSL/

• Corporate Authors:

  Research Triangle Institute

  Research Triangle Pk, NC  United States 
• Publication Date: 1969-7-11

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash causes; Crash investigation; Crash rates; Data collection; Detectors; Deviation (Statistics); Digital computers; Speed; Traffic crashes; Traffic flow; Traffic speed
• Uncontrolled Terms: Speed differential
• Old TRIS Terms: Deviation
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00220677
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Highway Safety Literature
• Report/Paper Numbers: 147 pp
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 15 1971 12:00AM