Trends Over Time in the Risk of Driver Death: What If Vehicle Designs Had Not Improved?
Passenger vehicle driver death rates per million vehicle registrations declined steadily during calendar years 1985-2004. The present study sought to separate the effect of vehicle design changes from this trend. Restricting the trend to a fixed set of model years removed the vehicle design effects, but there were still effects due to vehicle aging. Risk of driver death was found to increase each year vehicles aged, probably due to changes in vehicle use patterns. After separating out the vehicle design effects and making adjustments for the vehicle age effects, a different picture emerged of trends in death rates over time. Absent the vehicle design changes, the historical decline in driver fatality risk would have ended in 1993, with risk climbing ever since. This underlying trend has been obscured by changes in the vehicle fleet. The push for vehicle improvements has been worthwhile and can be credited with saving thousands of lives. However, the analysis shows that the gains in occupant protection from vehicle design improvements have been offset partially by an increasingly risky environment in recent years. Therefore, more attention needs to be paid to programs targeting improvement in roadway design and driver behavior.
-
Corporate Authors:
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
1005 North Glebe Road
Arlington, VA United States 22201 -
Authors:
- Farmer, Charles M
- Lund, Adrian K
- Publication Date: 2006-3
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Print
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 17p
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Aging (Materials); Behavior; Crash risk forecasting; Drivers; Fatalities; Highway design; Highway safety; Improvements; Motor vehicles; Occupant protection devices; Private passenger vehicles; Traffic crashes; Traffic safety; Trend (Statistics); Utilization; Vehicle design
- Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor; I91: Vehicle Design and Safety;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01024694
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: May 25 2006 7:57AM