Analysis of Distracted Driving Crashes in New Jersey Using Mixed Logit Model

Distracted driving is a concern for traffic safety in the 21st century. The behavior of drivers, including distractions, is often relatable to propensity and severity of traffic crashes. With the advent of technology, more distractions involving the use of cell phones during driving has emerged, and the young drivers are getting more engaged in these distractions. Texting and receiving phone calls during driving is an offense in most of the states, and it is restricted with fiscal punishments as well. Awareness campaigns are also being arranged in running decades across the United States to minimize the crashes due to distracted driving. The severity of crashes due to distracted driving depends on driver’s behavior which, can also be affected by various factors like geometric design of roadway, lighting and environmental conditions, and temporal variables. In this study, the authors analyzed five years (2015-2019) of New Jersey crashes using a mixed logit model. This approach allows for the possibility that estimated model parameters can vary randomly across roadway segments to account for unobserved heterogeneity relating to roadway characteristics, environmental factors, and driver behavior. Pseudo-elasticity analysis is further deployed to observe the sensitivity of significant explanatory variables in crash severity. The speed limit and the total number of vehicles involved increased crash severity most while AADT and urban setting did the opposite. These findings will further help decision-makers comprehend the significant contributing factors associated with crash injury severity due to distracted driving and implement necessary treatments to reduce the crash severity accordingly.

• Record URL:
  https://annualmeeting.mytrb.org/OnlineProgram/Details/15841
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ACH30 Standing Committee on Human Factors of Vehicles.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Hasan, Ahmed Sajid
  • Orvin, Muntahith Mehadil
  • Jalayer, Mohammad
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2021-1-5 to 2021-1-29
• Date: 2021

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Crash causes; Crash characteristics; Crash severity; Distraction; Driver performance; Human factors in crashes
• Geographic Terms: New Jersey
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01764204
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: TRBAM-21-02932
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 4 2021 11:00AM