The first collision point position identification method in vehicle–pedestrian impact accident

Abstract

Vehicle–pedestrian accidents share high frequency of occurrence in fatal traffic accidents in China. According to the Chinese Traffic Safety Regulations, the first collision point is the key factor for responsibility cognisance in related traffic accidents. Usually, the police or other accident investigators determine the first collision point position between vehicle and pedestrian only through experience. The position error of the collision point will lead to inaccurate accident analysis and responsibility judgement. This paper applies computer-simulated reconstruction in vehicle–pedestrian accident investigation and uses optimisation methods to analyse the simulation result. The first collision point position coordinates are set as variables of the optimisation objective function. Through optimisation analysis, first collision point position coordinates can be obtained. And, the reliability of simulation result can be evaluated through the reliability analysis. By reconstructing a real-world vehicle–pedestrian impact accident, the performance of the method is evaluated.

Keywords:

• vehicle–pedestrian impact accident
• first collision point position
• optimisation
• accident reconstruction

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 60970049, 50875166, 50705058).