Fatality rate of pedestrians and fatal crash involvement rate of drivers in pedestrian crashes: a case study of Iran

Abstract

The aim of this study was to uncover patterns of pedestrian crashes. In the first stage, 34,178 pedestrian-involved crashes occurred in Iran during a four-year period were grouped into homogeneous clusters using a clustering analysis. Next, some in-cluster and inter-cluster crash patterns were analysed. The clustering analysis yielded six pedestrian crash groups. Car/van/pickup crashes on rural roads as well as heavy vehicle crashes were found to be less frequent but more likely to be fatal compared to other crash clusters. In addition, after controlling for crash frequency in each cluster, it was found that the fatality rate of each pedestrian age group as well as the fatal crash involvement rate of each driver age group varies across the six clusters. Results of present study has some policy implications including, promoting pedestrian safety training sessions for heavy vehicle drivers, imposing limitations over elderly heavy vehicle drivers, reinforcing penalties toward under 19 drivers and motorcyclists. In addition, road safety campaigns in rural areas may be promoted to inform people about the higher fatality rate of pedestrians on rural roads. The crash patterns uncovered in this study might also be useful for prioritizing future pedestrian safety research areas.

Keywords:

• pedestrian fatality
• pedestrian age group
• driver age group
• crash pattern
• clustering analysis

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the invaluable help by Mr. Mishani and Mr. Sabbaq from the Information and Technology Department of Iranian Traffic Police for providing the crash data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.