Investigating safety of vulnerable road users in selected EU countries

Abstract

Problem: Vulnerable road users comprise over half of all road accident victims in the EU and their safety situation is not improving as fast as for motorists. The paper examines factors affecting fatality risk of pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and moped riders in seven EU countries using data from CARE database. Method: Comparing accident severity indicators between countries is problematic because of data quality issues, different degree of underreporting, and different exposure levels. To avoid bias arising from these issues, fatality risk is modeled with binary logistic regression. Risk factors considered include accident location by area type, junction type, and traffic control, as well as lighting condition. Results are presented as odds ratios of fatal accident outcome in different countries under specific circumstances compared to reference conditions. It is shown that the error in OR values due to underreporting is small. Results and discussion: Wide confidence intervals of the odds ratios in some countries confirm problems with accident data quality. Fatality risk is always higher for non-urban versus urban area and for darkness versus daylight conditions, but the odds ratios are different for different countries. Inconsistent results are obtained for accident location with respect to junction and its control type. Possible reasons for these differences are suggested and discussed. Practical applications: The proposed method avoids the data quality bias of accident severity indicators, thus, it can be used in international comparisons of vulnerable road user accidents. The article findings also support the concept of changes in legislation, such as reducing the speed limit in urban areas in Poland at night. Generally, the experience of countries with low VRU fatality risk identified in the article can be transferred to those with a higher risk.