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Determine initial cause of fatal crash types

Idea Submitted by:
Ray Starr
List your MnDOT Office,District,City, County, Univ. or Other:
Office of Traffic, Safety and Technology
Idea Champion - Who at MnDOT/LRRB? :
Ray Starr

Why is this a priority for the State/County/City? : As the "low hanging fruit" for countermeasures to reduce fatalities are already implemented, such as rumble strips and cable median barriers, new approaches need to be found to continue the reduction in fatalties.

Project Type - MnDOT or LRRB / Research, Implementation or TRS:
MnDOT Research
Idea Status (moderator):
Hold for FY 15

Crash statistics categorize crashes by type, such as run off the road, right angle, rear end, etc., but do not give information about the initial causes of crashes that could help guide selection of countermeasures. For example, run off the road crashes make up a large percentage of fatal crashes. Why did the vehicle run off the road? Did the driver fall asleep or was the driver impaired? Did the driver swerve to miss another vehicle or animal and went off the road? Did icy roads cause the driver to lose control? Was the driver distracted? Rumble strips warn the driver when they are going off the road, but can we implement a countermeasure that would have stopped the vehicle from going off the road in the first place by addressing the initial cause? Similar for intersection crashes. Did the driver intentionally run the red light or stop sign? Were they distracted? Were they looking straight ahead and forgot to look for approaching traffic? Did they misjudge the speed/distance of approaching traffic? Determining the initial cause will be difficult and may require interviewing crash survivors and reading individual crash reports and crash reconstruction reports.

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Submitted by ray.starr 11 months ago

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Comments (1)

  1. gary.dirlam

    Ray, I once had a similar research proposal accepted. Flaw was in use of the word causation. This term is a special word in research.

    I was thinking of a statistical analysis of all the factors checked on crash reports to see which of those lined up would be most prevelent in fatal crashes.

    we sat in groups of 6 to determine causation for 5-10 crashes. Less than 100 fatal crashes were reviewed. When I proposed the research project, I was thinking 3,000 fatal crashes could be statitically analysized via computer program.

    3 months ago
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