Intuition, the Accimap, and the question “why?” Identifying and classifying higher‐order factors contributing to road traffic collisions

Abstract

AbstractAlthough the physical and environmental factors contributing to road traffic collisions are often the most straightforward to identify, they may not necessarily be the most useful in terms of guiding road safety intervention design. From a sociotechnical systems perspective, it is the higher system factors that, if addressed, would provide the widest‐reaching benefits to system outcomes. That said, the identification of these higher‐order factors often requires a level of intuition or imagination; they are not always objectively obvious given the facts of a particular case. Here, we argue for the use of the Accimap approach to accident (or collision) analysis, supplemented with a modified version of the five whys causal analysis technique, for the support and structuring of this intuiting process. We use an analysis of a fatal motorcycle collision to illustrate how coroners in the United Kingdom could be supported in their task of identifying and summarizing factors in accordance with the levels of the Accimap, and according to a categorization scheme indicating how abstract those factors are (i.e., immediate, proximal, or distal). Our analysis identified 21 immediate, 12 proximal, and 33 distal factors contributing to the collision. It is these distal factors that are most likely to lead to longer‐term road safety improvements.