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Title:

Examination of Horizontal Curve Collision Characteristics and Corresponding Countermeasures

Accession Number:

01153413

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

Horizontal curves are relatively dangerous portions of the roadway network. Agencies optimizing the use of their safety funds on curves should have an idea of the characteristics of the collisions that occur on those segments. However, few previous published papers had attempted to characterize the crashes on horizontal curves. This paper describes an effort that characterized crashes reported to be on curves in North Carolina using the Highway Safety Information System. The research compared crashes on two-lane road curves to crashes on all two-lane roads and to crashes on all roads. Since North Carolina has wide varieties of terrain, climate, and development, the findings should be generally representative of the US. The analysis revealed that over-represented two-lane curve crash types included: • Crashes on grades;Rural;Severe injury or fatal; Fixed object (particularly tree, ditch, and embankment); Overturn; Off peak hours (particularly during darkness on unlighted roads); Weekend; Holiday periods; and Wet, icy or snowy pavement. In addition, the analysis showed that there were few short roadway segments (of 0.1- to 1-mile length) with more than 10 reported curve crashes in 3 years. The paper provides a summary of recommendations from the national literature to treat the over-represented crash types. Based on the findings, agencies should target countermeasures for the most common and over-represented crash types. Agencies should also analyze longer segments to provide curvy segments with concentrations of crashes a chance to compete for funding with other types of segments.

Monograph Accession #:

01147878

Report/Paper Numbers:

10-1009

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Hummer, Joseph E
Rasdorf, William J
Findley, Daniel Jonathan
Zegeer, Charles V
Sundstrom, Carl Andrew

Pagination:

17p

Publication Date:

2010

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2010-1-10 to 2010-1-14
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

DVD

Features:

Figures (4) ; References (13) ; Tables (8)

Geographic Terms:

North Carolina

Subject Areas:

Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2010 Paper #10-1009

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Jan 25 2010 10:27AM