An empirical analysis of driver injury severities in work-zone and non-work-zone crashes involving single-vehicle large trucks

Abstract

Objectives

Florida ranks among the states with the highest rates of work-zone crashes involving large trucks. With significant emphasis in Florida’s strategic highway safety plan, understanding work-zone crashes involving large trucks and resulting injury severities is critically important. This study investigated the contributing factors influencing the driver injury severity of single-large-truck crashes in work zones, benchmarked against non-work zones in Florida.

Methods

Using work-zone and non-work-zone crash data from 2011 to 2019 (inclusive), driver-injury severities in single-large trucks crashes were studied using random parameters logit models that allow for possible heterogeneity in the means and variances of parameter estimates. The available data included a wide variety of factors known to influence driver injury severity, including spatial and temporal; vehicle and traffic; roadway, harmful events, and driver characteristics.

Results

The model estimates produced fundamental shift in unobserved heterogeneity for work-zone and non-work-zone crashes involving single large trucks. More importantly, the likelihood of large truck drivers’ injury severity is about fourteen-times higher on rural and six-times higher on urban interstate highways and 1.3 times lower with 10 miles per hour below the posted speed limit for large trucks inside work zones relative to non-work zones. The model results also indicate that the likelihood of severe driver injury is higher for heavy truck (more than 26000 pounds), a lane-shift work-zone configuration, and careless driving in work-zone crashes involving single large trucks.

Conclusions

The model findings add valuable insights to have profound effects in the safety performance of large trucks and in-vehicle safety technologies, such as, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, for careful driving along the work-zone segments with lower speed, leading to Automated Driving Systems. These measures include various policy-related safety countermeasures including revisiting traffic control plan for lane-shift on highways specifically for large trucks and developing training modules for Florida registered truck drivers.

Keywords:

• Single large trucks
• work-zone crashes
• non-work-zone crashes
• injury severity
• mixed logit model with heterogeneity in means and variances

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.