01623628

Component

On a nationwide scale, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an average of 355 fatalities occur each year due to wrong-way driving (WWD). These crashes result in 1.34 fatalities per fatal crash, while for other non-WWD fatal crashes this number drops to 1.10. As such, further in-depth investigation of WWD crashes is necessary. The purpose of this study is twofold: to identify the characteristics that best describe WWD crashes and to verify the factors associated with WWD occurrence. To do so, the authors collected and analyzed fifteen years of crash data from the states of Illinois and Alabama. The final dataset comprises 398 WWD crashes. The rareness of WWD events and the consequently small sample size of the crash database significantly influence the application of conventional log-linear models in analyzing the data, as they use maximum-likelihood estimation. To overcome this issue, in this study, the authors employ multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to define the structure of the crash dataset and identify the significant contributing factors to WWD crashes on freeways. The study results provide policymakers with useful insights into WWD crashes for the development of effective safety countermeasures.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB20 Standing Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.

01618707

17-01182

English

19p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References (56) ; Tables

Crash characteristics; Fatalities; Highway safety; Mathematical models; Wrong way driving

Alabama; Illinois

Highways; Safety and Human Factors

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-01182

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 10:21AM