Investigation of the Relationship between Rainfall and Fatal Crashes in Texas, 1994–2018

Abstract

Understanding how crash factors are impacted by rain is critical to road safety planning and management. This study assesses the impact of rain on traffic safety by conducting an analysis of the fatal crashes related to rain in Texas from 1994 to 2018. The fatal crash data was gathered from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Environmental variables used in the analysis include month of the year, time of the day, temperature, and weather condition. The roadway-related factors identified include the posted speed limit, the number of lanes, route sign, and Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). The driver-related factors identified include age, gender, and the number of licensed drivers in total. Relative risk analysis was performed to statistically quantify the impact of rainy conditions at the hourly and monthly time scales. On average, rain-related fatal crashes represented about 6.8% of the total fatal crashes. However, the proportion shows higher variability at the annual, monthly, and hourly time scales and seems to be influenced by other factors such as the age and gender of the driver, type of the road, and posted roadway speed limit. Total and rain-related crashes show statistically significant decreasing trends when normalized by the total number of licensed drivers or vehicle miles travelled. The relative risk of a fatal crash during rainy conditions was always greater than 1.0 at hourly, monthly, and annual time scales. However, it shows significant variability at the monthly (1.07 to 2.78) and hourly scales (1.35 to 2.57). The relative risk is higher in less urbanized and drier counties, in general. Gender and age analysis reveals that male and young drivers are more likely to be involved in a fatal crash but less likely to be killed in the crash.

Analysis of Pedestrian–Motor Vehicle Crashes in San Antonio, Texas

“…Overall, male pedestrians were more common victims (58.2%), and had higher severe injury proportions, consistent with previous studies [14,15]. However, in pedestrian-at-fault crashes, 67.7% were male, which implies that the male population might be more reluctant to comply with the regulations and/or are more associated with risky behavior [71,72]. When the total population of San Antonio were considered, 25.3% were aged less than 18 years and 11.8% were aged 65 or over [22].…”

Internet of Things-Based Car Wiper and Accident Location Notification

“…The majority of this may be attributed to urbanisation as well as a rise in foreign travel. The growing popularity of ever-larger automobiles has immediate repercussions, including the rise in pollution levels as well as the number of people who are maimed or killed as a result of being involved in car accidents.Accidents on the road may happen to pedestrians as well as drivers [7]. Motorists are not the only ones who put themselves in danger when they drive on the road.…”

Impact of Rainfall on Traffic Speed in Major Cities of China

“…To promote the construction of healthy urban transportation, an important aspect is to construct an urban traffic assessment mechanism. The existing urban traffic assessment methods have primarily focused on convenience, efficiency, and accessibility in traffic travel, and they have quantitatively evaluated the health level of urban traffic at a microscopic scale (e.g., roads and regions) [21,[25][26][27]. Nevertheless, an evaluation of the urban traffic response capability under emergency conditions has been limited, especially for unexpected weather events [28].…”