A traffic collision ( motor vehicle collision , motor vehicle accident , or car crash ) is when a road vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, or geographical or architectural obstacle. Traffic collisions can result in injury, property damage, and death.
A number of factors contribute to the risk of collision including; vehicle design, speed of operation, road design, and driver impairment. Worldwide motor vehicle collisions lead to significant death and disability as well as significant financial costs to both society and the individual.
Terminology
Many different terms are commonly used to describe vehicle collisions. The World Health Organization use the term road traffic injury , well the U.S. Census Bureau uses the term motor vehicle accidents (MVA) and Transport Canada uses the term "motor vehicle traffic collision". Other terms that are commonly used include: auto accident , car accident , car crash , car smash , car wreck , motor vehicle collision (MVC) , personal injury collision (PIC) , road accident , road traffic accident (RTA) , road traffic collision (RTC) , road traffic incident (RTI) , smash-up and fender bender .
As the factors involved in collisions have become better understood, some organizations have begun to avoid the term "accident," as the word suggests an unpreventable, unpredictable event and disregards the opportunity for the driver(s) involved to avoid the crash. Although auto collisions are rare in terms of the number of vehicles on the road and the distance they travel, addressing the contributing factors can reduce their likelihood. For example, proper signage can decrease driver error and thereby reduce crash frequency by a third or more. That is why these organizations prefer the term "collision" rather than "accident".
However, treating collisions as anything other than "accidents" has been criticized for holding back safety improvements, because a culture of blame may discourage the involved parties from fully disclosing the facts, and thus frustrate attempts to address the real root causes.
Classification
Main article: Road accident typesMotor vehicle collisions can be classified by mechanism. Common mechanisms include head-on collisions, run-off-road collisions, rear-end collisions, side collision, and rollovers.
Types of harm
Injuries
It is highly uncertain exactly how many road traffic crash injuries occur in the world. Whether an injury is reported may depend upon compensation and medical procedures as well as on the amount of harm.
Fatality
Conceptually, the clearest type of harm in a road traffic crash is death – or a fatality. However, the definition of a road-traffic fatality is far more complicated than a casual thought might indicate, and involves many essentially arbitrary criteria. In the United States, for example, the definition used in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) run by the NHTSA is a person who dies within 30 days of a crash on a US public road involving a vehicle with an engine, the death being the result of the crash. In America therefore, if a driver has a non-fatal heart attack that leads to a road-traffic crash that causes death, that is a road-traffic fatality. However, if the heart attack causes death prior to the crash, then that is not a road-traffic fatality.
To make matters more complex the definition of Road Accident Fatality can differ in the same country during different years. For example, fatality is defined in France as a person who dies in the 6 days (pre 2005) after the accident; in the 30 days (post 2005) after the accident..
Property damage
Data for property damage crashes is even more uncertain than for injuries. In some jurisdictions the criterion for reporting is damage exceeding some monetary amount specified by statute. Because of inflation, this requirement may include more and more minor crashes as time passes, until the amount is abruptly changed, thereby reducing the reported number of crashes. Drivers generally report single-vehicle property damage crashes only if they see some benefit in reporting them, regardless of legal obligations
Causes
A 1985 study by K. Rumar, using British and American crash reports as data, found that 57% of crashes were due solely to driver factors, 27% to combined roadway and driver factors, 6% to combined vehicle and driver factors, 3% solely to roadway factors, 3% to combined roadway, driver, and vehicle factors, 2% solely to vehicle factors and 1% to combined roadway and vehicle factors.
Driver behaviour
A 1985 report based on British and American crash data found driver error, intoxication and other human factors contribute wholly or partly to about 93% of crashes.
An RAC survey found most British drivers think they're better drivers than non-British drivers. Nearly all drivers who'd been in a crash did not believe themselves to be at fault. One survey of drivers reported that they thought the key elements of good driving were:
- controlling a car including a good awareness of the car's size and capabilities
- reading and reacting to road conditions, weather, road signs and the environment
- alertness, reading and anticipating the behaviour of other drivers.
Although proficiency in these skills is taught and tested as part of the driving exam, a 'good' driver can still be at a high risk of crashing because:
"the feeling of being confident in more and more challenging situations is experienced as evidence of driving ability, and that 'proven' ability reinforces the feelings of confidence. Confidence feeds itself and grows unchecked until something happens – a near-miss or an accident".
An AXA survey concluded Irish drivers are very safety-conscious relative to other European drivers. However, this does not translate to significantly lower crash rates in Ireland.
Accompanying changes to road designs have been wide-scale adoptions of rules of the road alongside law enforcement policies that included drink-driving laws, setting of speed limits, and speed enforcement systems such as speed cameras. Some countries' driving tests have been expanded to test a new driver's behavior during emergencies, and their hazard perception.
There are demographic differences in crash rates. For example, although young people tend to have good reaction times, disproportionately more young male drivers feature in accidents, with researchers observing that many exhibit behaviors and attitudes to risk that can place them in more hazardous situations than other road users. This gets reflected by actuaries when they set insurance rates for different age groups, partly based on their age, sex, and choice of vehicle. Older drivers with slower reactions would be expected to be involved in more accidents, but this has not been the case as they tend to drive less and, apparently, more cautiously. Attempts to impose traffic policies can be complicated by local circumstances and driver behaviour. In 1969 Leeming warned that there is a balance to be struck when "improving" the safety of a road:
It can safely be said that many places which look dangerous do not have accidents, or very few. Conversely, a location that does not look dangerous may have a high crash frequency. The reason for this is simple. If drivers perceive a location as hazardous, they take more care and there are no accidents. Accidents happen when hazardous road or traffic conditions are not obvious at a glance, or where the conditions are too complicated for the limited human machine to perceive and react in the time and distance available.
This phenomena has been observed in risk compensation research, where the predicted reductions in accident rates have not occurred after legislative or technical changes. One study observed that the introduction of improved brakes resulted in more aggressive driving, and another argued that compulsory seat belt laws have not been accompanied by a clearly-attributed fall in overall fatalities.
In the 1990s Hans Monderman's studies of driver behavior led him to the realization that signs and regulations had an adverse effect on a driver's ability to interact safely with other road users. Monderman developed shared space principles, rooted in the principles of the woonerven of the 1970s. He found that the removal of highway clutter, while allowing drivers and other road users to mingle with equal priority, could help drivers recognize environmental clues. They relied on their cognitive skills alone, reducing traffic speeds radically and resulting in lower levels of road casualties and lower levels of congestion.
Motor vehicle speed
The U.S. Department of transportation's Federal Highway Administration review research on traffic speed in 1998. The summary states:
- That the evidence shows that the risk of having a crash is increased both for vehicles traveling slower than the average speed, and for those traveling above the average speed.
- That the risk of being injured increases exponentially with speeds much faster than the median speed.
- That the
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