Passenger Presence and Injury Severity of Single-Vehicle Crashes and Rear-End Crashes with Trucks

Abstract

Single-vehicle crashes and rear-end crashes with trucks are two major types of serious crashes in the roads of China, especially in expressways. In order to identify the influences of passenger presence on the injury severity of these crashes, 200 crash samples from Beijing were used to carry out the statistical analysis and comparative study. Chi-squared test was applied to analyze the significance of the main contributing factors related to the passenger presence in vehicles. The results revealed that driving with passengers had lower mortality than driving solo, especially for the drivers older than 25 years. Two passengers in vehicles appeared to have the lowest mortality in crashes. Male drivers with male passenger(s) had more risk to be involved in a crash than other gender groups. Compared with driving solo, when passengers existing in vehicles, speeding and low visibility increased the likelihood of rear-end crash; younger driver, speeding, suburban area increased the likelihood of single-vehicle crash. Speeding was a typical significant factor to influence the two types of crashes, which suggested that drivers with passengers were more liable to drive with over speed. These research findings are hopeful to contribute to crash prevention and injury reduction in future.