Identifying Driver Characteristics Influencing Overtaking Crashes

Abstract

Objective: To identify the most important driver characteristics influencing crash-causing overtaking maneuvers on 2-lane, 2-way rural roads of Iran.

Methods: Based on the crash data for rural roads of Iran over 3 years from 2006 to 2008, the classification and regression tree (CART) method combined with the quasi-induced exposure concept was applied for 4 independent variables and one target variable of “driver status” with 2 classes of at fault and not at fault. The independent variables were vehicle type, driver's age, driving license, and driving experience of the driver—the latter 2 driver characteristics are relatively new in traffic safety studies.

Results: According to the data set, 16,809 drivers were involved in 2-lane, 2-way rural roads overtaking crashes. The analysis revealed that drivers who are younger than 28 years old, whose driving license is type 2—a common driving license that is for driving with passenger car and light vehicles—and whose driving experience is less than 2 years are most probably responsible for overtaking crashes.

Conclusion: It was indicated that vehicle type is the most important factor associated with drivers being responsible for the crashes. The results also revealed that younger drivers (18–28 years) are most likely to be at fault in overtaking crashes. Therefore, enforcement and education should be more concentrated on this age group. Due to the incompliant nature of this group, changing the type and amount of traffic fines is essential for more preventing objectives. The research also found 2 relatively new factors of driving license and driving experience to have considerable effects on drivers being at fault, such that type 2 licensed drivers are more responsible compared to type 1 (a driving license for driving with all motor vehicles, which has some age and experience requirements) licensed drivers or drivers with a special license (a driving license with special vehicle types). Moreover, drivers with less than 2 years’ driving experience are more responsible for these kind of crashes; thus prohibiting new drivers from driving on rural roads for new drivers seems substantial.

Keywords:

• Quasi-induced exposure
• Data mining
• Classification and regression trees (CART)
• Two-lane, two-way rural roads
• Overtaking crashes
• Driver characteristics