MULTIDISCIPLINARY IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF SERIOUS FRONTAL COLLISIONS IN DENMARK

In the last 10 years, frontal collisions have been responsible for approximately 38 percent of all motor vehicle occupant fatalities in Denmark. In 1996, the Danish multidisciplinary Road Accident Analysis Group (AVU) carried out on-the-spot in-depth analyses of 17 serious frontal collisions, including eight fatal collisions. Each accident was analyzed for accident factors and injury factors - that is, factors that lead up to the accident and factors that contributed to the seriousness of the accident. The results show that high speeds and alcohol are still prevalent accident-factors. A surprising find was that cannabis played a contributing role in a number of the accidents, whereas suicide or attempted suicide was not judged to be a factor in any of the accidents. Evasive action, when abandoning overtaking and/or steering sharply to the left when a vehicle's wheels drive out on to the right hand soft shoulder, were also common contributing factors. In many cases behavioristic measures (for example, license suspension impounding of vehicles, speed bumps) were judged to be more relevant as preventive measures, as compared to educational measures, because the personality types of some of the instigating drivers were not likely to have been affected by educational measures, nor were they expected to be in the future. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see IRRD abstract no. E200025.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/1864352418
• Corporate Authors:

  Queensland University of Technology

  School of Civil Engineering
  Brisbane,   Australia 
• Authors:
  • Kines, P
  • Larsen, L
• Conference:
  • INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION, RECONSTRUCTION, INTERPRETATION AND THE LAW, 2ND, 1997, BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
• Publication Date: 1997

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 47-57

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Conferences; Crash severity; Crashes; Drivers; Drugs; Frontal crashes; Injuries; Injury severity; Intoxication; Law enforcement; Personality; Prevention; Safety; Speed
• Uncontrolled Terms: Causes
• Geographic Terms: Denmark
• ITRD Terms: 1643: Accident; 1661: Accident prevention; 9001: Behaviour; 9003: Cause; 8525: Conference; 8028: Denmark; 1772: Driver; 2242: Drugs; 2231: Drunkenness; 1534: Enforcement (law); 1640: Head on collision; 2163: Injury; 2258: Personality; 1623: Severity (accid, injury); 5408: Speed
• Subject Areas: Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00778983
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• ISBN: 1-86435-241-8
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Dec 7 1999 12:00AM