Fatal vehicle-occupant collisions - an in-depth study

Road traffic accidents are responsible for over 3000 deaths per year in the UK. Although progress is being made in a number of areas, vehicle occupant fatalities are not decreasing in line with casualty reduction targets for the year 2010. A sample of 1185 fatal occupant cases was considered, from 10 UK police forces, for the years 1994 to 2005 inclusive. Each case was summarised on a database, including the main objective features, a summary narrative, a sketch plan and a list of explanatory factors. The summary narrative, in particular, included judgements by the researchers that emphasised the sequence of events leading up to the accident. The main findings are given. Over 65% of accidents involved driving at excessive speed, a driver in excess of the legal alcohol limit, or the failure to wear a safety belt by a fatality, or some combination of these. Young drivers had the great majority of their accidents by losing control on bends or curves, typically at night in rural areas and / or while driving for leisure purposes. Older drivers had fewer accident, but the fatalities they were involved in tended to involve misjudgement and perceptual errors in 'right of way' collisions, typically in the daytimes on rural rather than urban roads. Blameworthy right of way errors were notably high for drivers aged over 65 years, as a proportion of total fatal accidents in that age group. The full text of this document may be found at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme5/fatalvehicleoccupant75.pdf

• Record URL:
  http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme5/fatalvehicleoccupant75.pdf
• 
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9781904763765
• Authors:
  • CLARKE, D
  • Ward, P
  • TRUMAN, W
  • BARTLE, C
• Publication Date: 2007-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 44p
• Serial:
  • Road Safety Research Report
  • Issue Number: No 75
  • Publisher: Department for Transport, England
  • ISSN: 1468-9138

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aged; Behavior; Crashes; Drivers; Errors; Fatalities; Human factors; Intoxication; Ran off road crashes; Recently qualified drivers; Right of way (Traffic); Speed; Turning traffic
• Uncontrolled Terms: Causes
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• ITRD Terms: 1643: Accident; 9001: Behaviour; 9003: Cause; 1772: Driver; 2231: Drunkenness; 6440: Error; 1602: Fatality; 2257: Human factor; 1746: Old people; 648: Priority (traffic); 1782: Recently qualified driver; 1653: Run off the road (accid); 5408: Speed; 1836: Turning; 8119: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01109465
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• ISBN: 978-1-904763-76-5
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Aug 25 2008 8:26AM