Understanding the Factors Affecting Urban Vehicle-to-Vehicle Crash Severity with Focus on Drivers' Route Familiarity

Abstract

Human factors are usually of paramount importance when it comes to traffic crashes. Drivers' route familiarity or unfamiliarity is a critical human-related factor that has less been considered in the literature. This factor can lead to inattention, distraction, and dangerous behaviors due to familiar drivers' over-confidence or unfamiliar drivers' insufficient knowledge of road geometry and environment. The main objective of this study is to discover the factors affecting the severity of vehicle-to-vehicle crashes in Rasht city (in northern Iran) involving unfamiliar and familiar drivers using a logistic regression model. The results indicate the significant effect of human factors such as driver's familiarity and age, collision type, angle and reason, temporal factors (season and time of day), vehicles involved in the crash, and environmental conditions on the injury severity of vehicle-tovehicle crashes in urban roads. The results of this study can be used by policymakers and implementers to take appropriate measures to reduce the severity of vehicle-to-vehicle crashes in urban areas.

Investigating the Probability of Potential Actions Performed by Drivers Experiencing Daytime Sun Glare-Induced Blindness

“…To highlight the differences between these datasets with respect to several factors, including AADT, estimated vehicle speed, and driver age, we conducted a comparative analysis. Furthermore, we categorized the most common possible actions that drivers are likely to take in response to sun glare, as validated by previous research ( 21 , 28 , 29 ). Figure 2 a indicates that careless or neglectful operation was the most likely action a driver may take, regardless of the influence of sun glare.…”