Abstract
The effect of aggressive driving behavior on driver’s injury severity is analyzed by considering a comprehensive set of variables at highway-rail grade crossings in the US. In doing so, we are able to use a mixed logit modelling approach; the study explores the determinants of driver-injury severity with and without aggressive driving behaviors at highway-rail grade crossings. Significant differences exist between drivers’ injury severity with and without aggressive driving behaviors at highway-rail grade crossings. The level of injury for younger male drivers increases a lot if they are with aggressive driving behavior. In addition, driving during peak-hour is found to be a statistically significant predictor of high level injury severity with aggressive driving behavior. Moreover, environmental factors are also found to be statistically significant. The increased level of injury severity accidents happened for drivers with aggressive driving behavior in the morning peak (6-9 am), and the probability of fatality increases in both snow and fog condition. Driving in open space area is also found to be a significant factor of high level injury severity with aggressive driving behaviors. Bad weather conditions are found to increase the probability of drivers’ high level injury severity for drivers with aggressive driving behaviors.
Highlights
Traffic accidents are a very important safety issue in the United States
Turning to the influence of gender, this study found that male drivers were more likely to express aggressive driving behaviors outwardly with high level injury severity given a highway-rail grade crossing accident happened than females
The estimation results indicate that driver age and gender as well as environmental, time-ofday, and weather characteristics have a strong effect on the injury severity level in highway-rail grade crossing accidents
Summary
Traffic accidents are a very important safety issue in the United States. Aggressive driving behaviors have been identified as a significant factor in traffic accidents [2]. Aggressive driving behaviors were found to be involved in more than 55% of all fatal accidents [4]. A critical area of traffic safety research involves highwayrail grade crossing accidents, as vehicle-train collisions are one of the most dangerous traffic accidents in terms of fatalities, injuries, and property damage due to the average 4,000 to 1 weight ratio of trains to motor vehicles [5]. There were 25,945 highway-rail crossing accidents in the United States recent ten years’ data between 2002 and 2011 in the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) database
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