In-depth Accident Investigation Research Articles

Human Factors, Ergonomics, and Biomechanical Engineering Approaches to Incidents involving Amusement Rides

Amusement ride incidents resulting in major injuries are a rare occurrence. When they occur, in-depth assessment requires specialized expertise and methodologies. Human Factors, Ergonomics (HF/E), and Biomechanical Engineering (BMechE) professionals are uniquely equipped to evaluate incidents involving these complex systems. An HF/E approach would follow frameworks to understand whether, given the situation and the actions and limitations of the individual, the adverse incident would have been avoidable. As a complement, during the in-depth assessments, BMechE approaches consider principles of mechanical engineering, mechanics, and biology in the context of human responses. This study outlines HF/E and BMechE frameworks and approaches that can be leveraged when performing in-depth accident investigations involving amusement rides and explores areas to enhance these contributions.

Investigation of accidents involving powered two wheelers and bicycles – A European in-depth study

Introduction: The number of road fatalities have been falling throughout the European Union (EU) over the past 20 years and most Member States have achieved an overall reduction. Research has mainly focused on protecting car occupants, with car occupant fatalities reducing significantly. However, recently there has been a plateauing in fatalities amongst ‘Vulnerable Road Users’ (VRUs), and in 2016 accidents involving VRUs accounted for nearly half of all EU road deaths. Method: The SaferWheels study collected in-depth data on 500 accidents involving Powered Two-Wheelers (PTWs) and bicycles across six European countries. A standard in-depth accident investigation methodology was used by each team. The Driver Reliability and Error Analysis Method (DREAM) was used to systematically classify accident causation factors. Results: The most common causal factors related to errors in observation by the PTW/bicycle rider or the driver of the other vehicle, typically called ‘looked but failed to see’ accidents. Common scenarios involved the other vehicle turning or crossing in front of the PTW/bicycle. A quarter of serious or fatal injuries to PTW riders occurred in accidents where the rider lost control with no other vehicle involvement. Conclusions: Highly detailed data have been collected for 500 accidents involving PTWs or bicycles in the EU. These data can be further analyzed by researchers on a case-study basis to gain detailed insights on such accidents. Preliminary analysis suggests that ‘looked but failed to see’ remains a common cause, and in many cases the actions of the other vehicle were the critical factor, though PTW rider speed or inexperience played a role in some cases. Practical Applications: The collected data can be analyzed to better understand the characteristics and causes of accidents involving PTWs and bicycles in the EU. The results can be used to develop policies aimed at reducing road deaths and injuries to VRUs.

In-depth Accident Investigation: Case Studies in Motorway of Department of Highways Thailand

In-depth Accident Investigation: Case Studies in Motorway of Department of Highways Thailand

Human factors contributing to the road traffic accident occurrence

Analysis of accident causation does not allow to clearly determine the influence of one specific cause. Traffic accident has been a result of many interacting factors. Most of accident causes classification systems have been focused on the errors and actions of the participant that immediately led to the conflict (eg. not giving a way). The actual reasons why the driver failure occurred are not taken into account. The aim of this study has been the analysis of human behavior or condition which can lead to the accident or influenced the accident causation. For the purpose of this study, the most often factors contributing to the traffic accidents occurrence of selected risk groups has been analyzed - eg. young drivers, seniors, risky drivers. For the data analysis, data from the research project Czech In-depth Accident Study (CzIDAS) has been used. The in-depth accident investigation teams document all relevant information on the traffic environment, vehicles, and human factors, at the scene immediately after the occurrence of a traffic accident. The investigation includes an individual interview by a psychologist with traffic accident participants, focused on all relevant information related to causes, actual mental and physical condition of a participant, driving habits and practice, and basic and sociodemographic information about the participant.

Effect of 3D visual markings on driver perception and behavior

In-depth accident investigations have shown that excessive speed and poor driver perception are the causes of a large number of traffic accident. One way to improve traffic safety is to provide adequate visibility in order to help drivers adopt adequate behaviors (speed, headway, etc.). Help can come from the infrastructure. The 3D visual markings are the latest innovative measure adopted as an alternative to traditional sleeping policemen. The idea with 3D visual markings is to catch drivers’ attention just briefly enough to get them to slow down, but not so much that they cause a traffic disruption. The main goal of the research was to appraise the relationship between the drivers behavior (e.g. vehicle speed) and the 3D visual markings. The results of this study are relevant for the understanding the influence of 3D visual markings on driver behavior (drivers speed selection).

Analysis of Crossing Accident of Four-wheeled Vehicles Using In-depth Accident Investigation Database

Analysis of Crossing Accident of Four-wheeled Vehicles Using In-depth Accident Investigation Database

Aggregated analysis of in-depth accident causation data

Data collected from in-depth road accident investigations are very informative and may contain more than 500 accident-related variables for a single investigated case. These data may be used to get a more detailed knowledge on accident and injury causation associated with a specific accident scenario. However, due to their complexity, studies using in-depth data at aggregated levels are not common. The objective of this paper is to propose a methodology to analyse aggregated accident causation charts in order to highlight strong and weak relationships between crash causes and pre-crash scenarios. These relationships can be taken into account when developing or assessing new road safety measures (e.g. in-vehicle systems). The methodology has been applied to an in-depth accident dataset derived from the European project SafetyNet. Four different pre-crash scenarios associated with the accident scenario ‘vehicles encountering something while remaining in their lane’ have been investigated. Even if generalization of these results should be done with care because of database representativeness issues, the methodology is promising, highlighting, for example, a well-defined causation pattern related to vehicles striking a vehicle in rear-end accidents.

Influence of Travelling Speed on the Risk of Injury Accident: a Matched Case-Control Study

This matched case-control study deals with the effect of the individual travelling speed on the risk of involvement in a road accident. The cases were cars involved in injury accidents dealt with within the framework of an in-depth accident investigation programme. The matched controls were cars passing the same road site as the crash-involved car, in the same conditions but without being involved in an accident. Only normal weather, daytime and free-flow conditions were considered. Overall, 52 cases and 817 controls were used. The speeds were obtained from kinematic reconstructions for the crash-involved cars, and using a laser speed gun for the controls. A significant positive relationship is found between the individual travelling speed and the risk of injury accident. Nevertheless, this study has limitations, due to the relatively small number of cases and to the data used (kinematic reconstructions always involve some degree of interpretation).

The Correlation Analysis of Two Wheelers Accident Factors and Casualties Based on In-Depth Traffic Accident Investigation

Situation of two wheelers is severe in China, and in order to find out direction to decrease injury, this paper researched correlation between accident factors and casualties. The correlation analysis were made between Human, Time and Scene factors and injury conditions by Chi-square test based on in-depth traffic accident investigation data among motorcycle, two-wheel electric bicycle and bicycle accident. The results show that there are seven factors indicated statistical significance at low grade correlation with casualties among motorcycle and two-wheel electric bicycle. Bicycle have three factors show the middle grade correlation, and Age is the strongest correlation factor with V value 0.39.

In-depth real-world bicycle accident reconstructions

Use of bicycles on a large scale, encouraged in the context to develop an eco-friendly environment, is facing today a range of barriers. One of these barriers identified by researchers and governments is observed to include ‘road safety’. Hence, it is necessary to set up a protection system for bicyclists especially for the cephalic segment. Currently only few studies are available concerning the head impact loading in case of real accidents. Therefore, the objective of this work is to improve the knowledge of bicyclist head trauma by following a methodology to reconstruct real-world accidents. A step is to identify the initial condition of head impact in case of real accidents. Head impact velocity and head impact area are extracted and implemented in the last generation of head injury prediction tool to simulate the head trauma by impacting directly the Strasbourg University Finite Element Head Model (SUFEHM) on the vehicle structures. The present study can be divided into three activities, i.e. obtain real bicyclist accidents' data issued from in-depth accident investigation databases, reconstruct cyclist body kinematics to obtain the initial conditions of the head just before the impact, and simulate head impact to evaluate the head loading during impact and the injury risk. A total of 24 bicyclists’ accident cases with head injuries have been selected from both French and German accident databases. For each accident case, body kinematics has been simulated using Madymo® software. Two human multi-body models were used: 8 accident cases have been reconstructed by IFSTTAR using its owned developed human model and 18 accident cases have been reconstructed by Unistra using the human pedestrian TNO model. The results show that head is impacted more often on top parietal zone, and the mean impact velocity is 6.8 ± 2.7 m/s with 5.5 ± 3.0 m/s and 3.4 ± 2.1 m/s for normal and tangential components, respectively. Among these real accidents, 19 cases were selected for finite element computations by coupling the human head model and a windscreen model whose properties were extracted from literature. All reconstructed head impact gave results in accordance with the damage actually incurred to the victims.

자동차 정면충돌에서 자동차 영구 변형량에 따른 승객 상해 추정

The estimation of occupant injury risk at crash accident is one of the most important assessments for the vehicle crashworthiness performance. The design of safety devices such as occupant restraining system also depend on the kinematics of occupant and its injury risk. The real world in-depth accident investigation provides detailed and realistic information of vehicle damage and occupant injury as well as the accident conditions. This paper introduces a statistical analysis of NASS/CDS database and domestic accident data to correlate speed change, vehicle damage extend, and occupant injury at frontal crash. The maximum crush extend shows a linear relationship with the effective impact speed. The injury risks of the occupant with and without restraining were also respectively quantified with the crush extend. This result can be effectively used for the emergent rescue of crash victims with automatic crash notification system.

What can the drivers’ own description from combined sources provide in an analysis of driver distraction and low vigilance in accident situations?

Accident data play an important role in vehicle safety development. Accident data sources are generally limited in terms of how much information is provided on driver states and behaviour prior to an accident. However, the precise limitations vary between databases, due to differences in analysis focus and data collection procedures between organisations. If information about a specific accident can be retrieved from more than one data source it should be possible to combine the available information sets to facilitate data from one source to compensate for limitations in the other(s). To investigate the viability of such compensation, this study identified a set of accidents recorded in two different data sources. The first data source investigated was an accident mail survey and the second data source insurance claims documents consisting predominantly of insurance claims completed by the involved road users. An analysis of survey variables was compared to a case analysis including word data derived from the same survey and filed insurance claims documents. For each accident, the added value of having access to more than one source of information was assessed. To limit the scope of this study, three particular topics were investigated: available information on low vigilance (e.g., being drowsy, ill); secondary task distraction (e.g., talking with passengers, mobile phone use); and distraction related to the driving task (e.g., looking for approaching vehicles). Results suggest that for low vigilance and secondary task distraction, a combination of the mail survey and insurance claims documents provide more reliable and detailed pre-crash information than survey variables alone. However, driving related distraction appears to be more difficult to capture. In order to gain a better understanding of the above issues and how frequently they occur in accidents, the data sources and analysis methods suggested here may be combined with other investigation methods such as in-depth accident investigations and pre-crash data recordings.

CASPER–Improvement of Child Safety in Cars

The EC CASPER (Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads) project aims at decreasing injuries and fatalities of child occupants. This goal represents a major social and economic benefit for the whole European Community. CASPER has carried out a two way approach for improving child safety. Results are complementary. Firstly, the improvement of quality of use of restraint systems is certainly a good way for a rapid and consequent improvement of the situation, secondly, it is necessary to give guidelines and reliable tools to design protection devices that are easier to use, have a higher level of crash performance and are used for a large proportion of children. CASPER involves a consortium of 15 European partners representing a good balance between industry, medical and technical universities, road state institutes and organizations specialized in road safety issues for a 36 month project. This project was accepted under the GA n°218564 of the FP7-SST-2007-RTD-1-program of the European Commision that is partially funding the project. Data from previous European projects were used as a basis. In-depth accident investigations, misuse (incorrect use of a restraint system) and sociological field data collection took place and were analyzed. Existing tools used for the evaluation of protection of children were improved while missing ones were developed. These are used to address issues identified by the field data analysis. In addition to proposals of improvements for the Q-series crash test dummies, further development of injury risk curves both for frontal and side impact is ongoing. Finite element models have been developed for child dummies and for human child bodies. An analysis of test procedures was done in order to define the highest priorities. CASPER is now finalizing the tools and proposing solutions that could be applied to improve child safety in cars, whilst evaluating if some of these solutions could be transferred to other transportation modes.

Estimation of Fatality and Injury Risk by Means of In-Depth Fatal Accident Investigation Data

Objective: In this article the factors affecting fatality and injury risk of road users involved in fatal accidents are analyzed by means of in-depth accident investigation data, with emphasis on parameters not extensively explored in previous research. Methods: A fatal accident investigation (FAI) database is used, which includes intermediate-level in-depth data for a harmonized representative sample of 1300 fatal accidents in 7 European countries. The FAI database offers improved potential for analysis, because it includes information on a number of variables that are seldom available, complete, or accurately recorded in road accident databases. However, the fact that only fatal accidents are examined requires for methodological adjustments, namely, the correction for two types of effects on a road user's baseline risk: “accident size” effects, and “relative vulnerability” effects. Fatality and injury risk can be then modeled through multilevel logistic regression models, which account for the hierarchical dependences of the road accident process. Results: The results show that the baseline fatality risk of road users involved in fatal accidents decreases with accident size and increases with the vulnerability of the road user. On the contrary, accident size increases nonfatal injury risk of road users involved in fatal accidents. Other significant effects on fatality and injury risk in fatal accidents include road user age, vehicle type, speed limit, the chain of accident events, vehicle maneuver, and safety equipment. In particular, the presence and use of safety equipment such as seat belt, antilock braking system (ABS), and electronic stability program (ESP) are protection factors for car occupants, especially for those seated at the front seats. Conclusions: Although ABS and ESP systems are typically associated with positive effects on accident occurrence, the results of this research revealed significant related effects on accident severity as well. Moreover, accident consequences are more severe when the most harmful event of the accident occurs later within the accident chain.

Real accidents involving vulnerable road users: in-depth investigation, numerical simulation and experimental reconstitution with PMHS

This paper presents the methodology used to improve knowledge about vulnerable road users’ accidents and more specifically pedestrians or cyclists. This work is based on a complete analysis of real accidents from three different approaches: in-depth accident investigation, numerical simulation with multibody model and experimental reconstitution with PMHS subject. Accidents chosen from an in-depth multidisciplinary investigation are numerically modelled using a multibody software. Then, a parametric study focused for instance on car velocity and victim position at impact is performed in order to find the best correlations with all indications produced by the in-depth analysis. Finally, the retained configuration close to the presumed real accident conditions is reproduced experimentally by a crash test using cadavers. All results are finally compared in order to validate the real accident reconstruction. This methodology is applied on two real accidents involving one pedestrian or one cyclist.

In-depth investigation of escalator riding accidents in heavy capacity MRT stations

In 2000, the accident rate for escalator riding was about 0.815 accidents per million passenger trips through Taipei Metro Rapid Transit (MRT) heavy capacity stations. In order to reduce the probability and severity of escalator riding accidents and enhance the safety of passengers, the Drury and Brill model [Drury, C.G., Brill, M., 1983. Human factors in consumer product accident investigation. Hum. Factors 25 (3), 329–342] for in-depth investigation was adopted to analyze the 194 escalator riding accidents in terms of victim, task, product and environment. Prevention measures have been developed based on the major causes of accidents and other related contributing factors. The results from the analysis indicated that the majority of the escalator riding accidents was caused by passengers’ carrying out other tasks (38 cases, including carrying luggage 24 cases, looking after accompany persons 9 cases, and 5 others), loss of balance (26 cases, 13.4%), not holding the handrail (20 cases, 10.3%), unhealthy passengers (18 cases, 9.3%), followed by people struck by other passenger (16 cases, 8.2%). For female passengers aged 15–64 years, their rushing for trains accidents could have been prevented by wearing safer footwear or by appropriate signing being provided indicating the location and traveling direction of escalators. Female passengers aged 65 years and above whose accidents were caused by loss of balance, should be encouraged to take the elevator instead. To prevent entrapment injuries, following a stricter design code can be most effective. Further in-depth accident investigation is suggested to cover the activity of the victim prior to the accident, any involved product, the location of the accident on the escalator, any medical treatment, what went wrong, opinion of the respondent on the causes of the accident, and personal characteristics of the passengers. Also, management must trade off productivity and safety appropriately to prevent “Organizational Accidents”.

A Systematic Accident Scenario Analysis of Child Nursery Equipment: Stroller Case Study

Despite the improvements in child safety products with better government regulations, children continue to be victims of defective or improperly used child nursery equipment. According to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), an estimated 80,000 children under age five are treated every year in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to child nursery equipment. Among child nursery equipment, stroller-related accidents caused the most serious injuries to children along with baby walkers and child safety seats. As such, an in-depth accident investigation was needed to find ways to reduce the number of injuries and provide more stringent safety specifications in the design of the stroller. The objective of this study is to identify the accident mechanisms and patterns of stroller-related injuries for designing safer products. In this study, we proposed a Systematic Accident Scenario Analysis (SASA) method, which provides a formal and systematic scheme to devise accident scenarios while maintaining objectivity.

Preschool Children and the Cigarette Lighter

Fire is the leading cause of death in the home for children under the age of five. Many of these fires are caused by the children themselves, and the common disposable butane lighter has emerged as a frequent source of ignition. The children involved are typically quite young, with three-fourths under age five. The work reported in this paper addressed human factors concerns in children operating cigarette lighters to start fires. It included a review of literature on child fire setting; an analysis of in-depth accident investigations; a survey of the child developmental literature to identify physical, cognitive, and behavioral factors related to lighter operation; the development of strategies for enhancing the child-resistance of lighters; and the development and pilot testing of a detailed formal evaluation protocol for assessing the child-resistance of lighters. The overall findings of the project indicate the significance of the fire safety problem involving cigarette lighters, and the susceptibility of the problem to human factors solutions. The general strategies identified for improving the product provide a starting point for creative, and cost effective, design approaches. The evaluation protocols developed provide an objective means for assessing child-resistance, and should prove useful for research, evaluation, and regulation.

Pedestrian post-impact kinematics and injury patterns

In this paper, frontal motor vehicle pedestrian collisions are classified according to post-impact pedestrian kinematics observed in real world vehicle vs. pedestrian accidents. Results from in-depth pedestrian accident investigations provide the medico-engineering basis for this study. It was found that impact-induced pedestrian motion is influenced by the relative configuration of the vehicle and pedestrian at impact as well as the vehicle's impact speed and deceleration rate. Injury patterns were found to be dependent on the trajectory type in addition to impact severity and characteristics of the vehicle and roadway. Five basic kinematic trajectories have been identified for frontal collision cases and are described as: wrap, forward projection, fender vault, roof vault, and somersault. Pedestrian injury patterns are analyzed for each of the trajectory types; an injury risk index is defined; and the associated injury risks are compared. It is hoped that classification of the characteristic injury patterns and trajectories can facilitate vehicle design improvements to reduce pedestrian injury severity.

The Effects of the Boating Environment on Operator Performance

Through detailed studies of boating accident data and in-depth accident investigations, the United States Coast Guard has determined that approximately ninety percent of the causes of boating collisions are operator related. These cause identification studies have indicated that the boating environment (through stressors such as noise, heat, glare, etc.) may contribute significantly to operator related causes of accidents. The Visual Alertness Stressor Test (VAST) was developed as a means of measuring the effects of stressors on a boat operator's performance. VAST is a divided attention task. The small boat operator is required to maintain a course and speed dictated by an on board experimenter (primary task), and respond to particular light patterns shown on a semicircular display around the cockpit (secondary task). Basic measures of performance include response times and error scores for the light patterns. This paper presents the results of three years of research in the area of boating stressors and operator performance, primarily using VAST. Research in the area of balancing performance is discussed. The results to date have shown that stressors such as fatigue, noise, shock/vibration, and alcohol can be shown to lead to operator performance degradations. Other variables which have been or will be studied include glare, wind, and more detailed studies of noise and shock/vibration. Future applications include the application of VAST research techniques to finding and testing countermeasures for the special stressor problems associated with Coast Guard search and rescue missions.