Examining the Role of Speed and Driving Stability on Crash Severity Using SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study Data

While the cost of crashes nears $1 Trillion a year in the U.S., the availability of high-resolution naturalistic driving data provides an opportunity for researchers to conduct in-depth analysis of crash contributing factors, and design appropriate interventions. The SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) is a unique dataset that allows new insights due to detailed information on driver behavior in normal pre-crash and near crash situations, in addition to trip characteristics, and vehicle performance characteristics. NDS data are used to investigate not only the vehicle movements in space but also the speed and stability of vehicles prior to crash and their contribution to severity using path analysis. A subset of the data containing 617 crash events with around 180,000 temporal trajectory data are analyzed. To quantify driving stability, microscopic variations or volatility in vehicular movements before a crash is analyzed. Specifically, nine measures of pre-crash driving volatility are calculated and used to explain crash severity. While most of the measures are significantly correlated with severity, substantial positive correlations are observed for two measures representing speed and deceleration volatilities. Additionally, the average speed prior to a crash is highly correlated with severity outcomes, as expected. Interestingly, distracted and aggressive driving are highly correlated with driving volatility, and have substantial indirect effects on crash severity. With volatile driving serving as a leading indicator of crash severity, given the crashes analyzed in this study, early warnings and alerts for the subject vehicle driver and proximate vehicles can be helpful when volatile behavior is observed.

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

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Arvin, Ramin
  • Kamrani, Mohsen
  • Khattak, Asad J
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 8p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automatic data collection systems; Behavior; Crash causes; Crash severity; Driver performance; Human factors in crashes; Speed; Vehicle trajectories
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01698111
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-01981
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 1 2019 3:51PM