Exploring the differences in rider injury severity in vehicle-two-wheelers accidents with dissimilar fault parties

Abstract

Objective: The division of responsibility in vehicle-two-wheelers accidents reflects the extent to which different fault parties contributed to the occurrence of the accident, with significant differences in the injuries sustained by the riders in accidents where diverse parties were primarily responsible. We want to explore the difference in the severity of injury of riders in different fault parties of accidents so that we can make targeted protection improvements.

Methods: In this study, three generalized ordered logit models were established for the total sample (n = 1204), the sample with drivers as the primary fault party (n = 607), and the sample with riders as the primary fault party (n = 597), respectively, to explore the differential impact factors on rider injury severity in vehicle-two-wheelers accidents involving different fault parties. Inter-group difference tests were conducted on the mean rider injury severity caused by differential factors in different accidents. Combining the impact effect trends and mean differences in the model, the differences in rider injury severity in accidents involving different fault parties were analyzed from the standpoints of human, vehicle, and road factors.

Results: It was found that the effects of curve on injury severity was sheerly opposite in accidents with different fault parties and that factors, such as visual obstruction, road surface condition, gender, and helmet wearing differed in their effects on rider injury severity under different fault parties accidents. This reveals the driving tendencies and states of both parties in different environments.

Conclusion: Based on the differential impact factor analysis and rider injury characteristics in accidents involving different fault parties, suggestions for improvement were made from the perspectives of road facilities, and safety awareness of drivers and riders, which are beneficial for improving rider safety and providing a theoretical reference for future regulations on liability allocation.

Keywords:

• Accident responsibility
• traffic safety
• rider’s injury severity
• vehicle-two-wheelers accident
• driving habit

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to all the authors for their contributions to the literature search, data collection, modeling, and manuscript revision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Miao Lin, upon reasonable request. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was jointly supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars under Grant 52325211, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 52172399, 52175088, 52211530054 and 52372348. In part by the Natural Science Foundation of Changsha under Grant KQ2208235, and in part by the Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province under Grant 21A0193.