Investigation of Confounding Factors Contributing to Wrong-Way Driving Crashes on Partially and Uncontrolled-Access Divided Highways
This study focuses on differentiating the confounding factors that contribute to Wrong-Way Driving (WWD) crashes from other type of crashes on Alabama divided highways by performing statistical analysis. Crash data from 2009 to 2013 including 112 verified WWD crashes is compared with 49,599 other kind of crashes on the same class of roads during the same period. A simple descriptive data analysis was conducted to identify different explanatory variables contributing to WWD crashes. The results illustrated characteristics of a WWD crash, including crash severity, temporal distribution, driver characteristics, vehicle characteristics, and environmental conditions. In addition, the Firth’s penalized-likelihood logistic regression model was used to identify the statistically significant contributing factors. Odds ratios (OR) of different variables were calculated to measure how each factor affect WWD crashes when compared with other types of crashes. The results show that wrong-way (WW) drivers are more likely to be older and driving under influence (DUI). Furthermore, WWD crashes were found to be more prevalent in urban areas and dark road conditions. Dark roadway with no lighting conditions was found to have the largest OR. To complement the analysis, the contributing factors of those fatal WWD crashes also were investigated. Finally, several countermeasures for reducing WWD crashes on the studied facilities are discussed based on the data analysis results.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB20 Standing Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Zhang, Beijia
- Pour-Rouholamin, Mahdi
- Zhou, Huaguo
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
- Date: 2017
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 16p
- Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Crash causes; Crash characteristics; Crash severity; Wrong way driving
- Geographic Terms: Alabama
- Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01626300
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 17-05146
- Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 22 2017 9:55AM