COMPARISON OF TWO RESPONSIBILITY ANALYSIS METHODS REGARDING FATAL CRASHES

While studying the contribution of alcohol or drugs to the risk of accident, researchers have often encountered the problem of lack of road exposure data. Responsibility analysis has tried to overcome this problem and to allow for a good estimate of the risk of accident. Over the last 20 years, developments have led to the use of two main methods. According to the first (1,2) a panel of judges is asked to evaluate the responsibility of the driver on a 5-degree scale. The second method (3,4) uses a scoring guideline that assesses responsibility based on eight mitigating factors. The total score (between 8 and 26) is used to deem a driver to be culpable, contributory or non-culpable. Both methods imply responsibility evaluation without knowledge of drugs or alcohol consumption by the driver. The main goal of this study is to compare these two methods with the same sample of data to identify the differences, the advantages and the disadvantages of both methods. In close to 4 out of 5 cases, drivers involved in accidents scored the same for extent of responsibility regardless of the method used. However, in cases where the results diverge, we noted that the factors accounting for the difference concerned mainly the weather and condition of the vehicle. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see ITRD Abstract No. E201067.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/2511215927
• Corporate Authors:

  Societe de l'assurance Automobile du Quebec

  Quebec, Quebec  Canada 
• Authors:
  • Brault, M
  • Dussault, C
• Conference:
  • PROCEEDINGS OF THE 16TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ALCOHOL, DRUGS AND TRAFFIC SAFETY
• Publication Date: 2002

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 1181-1188

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alcohols; Conferences; Crashes; Drugs; Fatalities; Vehicles; Weather
• Uncontrolled Terms: Causes; Responsibility
• ITRD Terms: 1643: Accident; 7347: Alcohol; 9003: Cause; 8525: Conference; 2242: Drugs; 1602: Fatality; 2264: Responsibility; 1255: Vehicle; 2545: Weather
• Subject Areas: Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00971832
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)
• ISBN: 2-511-21592-7
• Files: ITRD
• Created Date: Apr 22 2004 12:00AM