Using Medical Records in Non-Motor-Vehicle Pedestrian Accident Identification and Countermeasure Development

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using emergency room and emergency medical service records in quantifying rural non-motor-vehicle pedestrian accidents and in developing countermeasures to reduce injuries resulting from such accidents. A literature review indicated that although non-motor-vehicle pedestrian accidents are a significant injury problem in the United States, there does not appear to be an effective process for collecting data about those accidents that corresponds to the data collection methods used at present for motor-vehicle accidents. A multistep process for obtaining detailed pedestrian accident data using a combination of medical records and telephone surveys is described. Data collection was time consuming and labor intensive. Therefore, it was concluded that it is not practical for traffic engineers to use medical records on a routine basis for pedestrian accident analysis. The method outlined yields a data base rich in details about pedestrian fall accidents, making it valuable in research. Whereas the results of the telephone survey did not produce a large enough sample size to extrapolate to pedestrian accidents in general, they did point out the importance of surface condition to pedestrian safety. Two general types of surface-condition problems were identified: slippery surfaces caused by accumulation of snow and ice and surface holes or openings.