The role of gender and temporal instability in driver-injury severities in crashes caused by speeds too fast for conditions. (April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Islam, Mouyid; Mannering, Fred
• Is Part Of: Accident analysis and prevention. Volume 153(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-04
• Subjects: Driving too fast for conditions -- Temporal stability -- Injury severity -- Mixed logit model with heterogeneity in means and variances -- Male and female drivers -- Rainy weather; Accidents -- Prevention -- Periodicals; Accident Prevention -- Periodicals; Accidents -- Prévention -- Périodiques; 363.106
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2021.106039
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0001-4575

Abstract

Highlights: Injury impacts of inappropriate speed adjustment to rainy conditions are studied. Random parameters logit models of injury severity in single-vehicle crashes are estimated. Significant differences between male and female injuries are found, and differences change over time. However, some non-collision factors and restraint usage were stable over time. Abstract: The effect of inappropriate speed adjustment to adverse conditions on crash-injury severities, and how this effect might vary across male and female drivers, and over time, is not well understood. To study this, single-vehicle crashes occurring in rainy weather, where speed too fast for conditions is a driver action identified as a contributing factor to the crash, were considered. The differences between the resulting crash-injury severities of male and female drivers (and how these differences change over time) is then studied utilizing three years of Florida crash data and estimating random parameters multinomial logit models of driver injury severity while considering potential heterogeneity in the means and variances of parameter estimates. Model estimation results show that there were significant differences in the driver-injury severities of male and female drivers, and that the effect of factors that determine injury severities varied significantly over time (statistically significant temporal instability). This suggests that male and female drivers generally perceive and react to rainy weather conditions in fundamentally different ways, and that their responses, as reflected by the effect that explanatory variables have on injury severity probabilities, change over time. However, there were two explanatory variables that had relatively stable effects on injury-severity probabilities over time and across genders: an indicator variable for crashes involving non-collision factors (including overturn/rollover crashes) and an indicator variable for restraint usage. Policies that target these two variables could produce long-term reductions in crash-injury severities under adverse conditions.