Single-vehicle injury crashes on rural roads in Iceland: contribution of unforgiving roadsides to fatal and serious injuries of vehicle occupants

Audur Thora Arnadottir; Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson; Sungyop Kim

doi:10.55329/bkrk9175

Authors

Audur Th. Arnadottir Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration, Iceland https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7614-6642
Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson University of Iceland, Iceland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0094-7531
Sungyop Kim University of Missouri–Kansas City, the United States of America https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1784-1813

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55329/bkrk9175

Keywords:

injury severity, run-off-road crashes, unforgiving roadsides

Abstract

About 50% of the most severe crashes on rural roads in Iceland are run-off-road crashes. Many existing roads were designed before the concept of forgiving roadsides became prevailing in road design in Iceland. This research aimed to find the roadside elements that significantly increase the probability of high severity of single-vehicle injury crashes compared to low severity crashes on rural roads to prioritize safety improvements under limited budgets. In this research, 712 police records on single-vehicle injury crashes on rural state roads in Iceland in 2016–2018 were investigated. Crash data developed from police reports do not typically include information on roadside elements even though such information is often visible in photographs or written in words by police officers in their crash reports. This limits research on roadside elements and unforgiving roadsides. In this study, the original written police reports and crash photographs were reviewed. Based on this, additional data regarding the roadside elements were coded and added to the standard crash data. A binary logit model for the most severe injury in each crash was developed to statistically test the effect of roadside elements on the probability of fatal and serious injury versus low severity. The model results showed that two roadside elements, rocks and steep transverse slopes (e.g. where an access road enters a main road), hit by a vehicle in a run-off-road crash, more than doubled the probability of high severity. Road safety measures where roadside rocks are removed or steep transverse slopes are reduced, thereby making roadsides more smooth and forgiving, can be especially beneficial for safety because road users are unlikely to adapt their behavior to increased safety from such improvements. This is because such improvements are likely not easily noticed by road users; hence they reduce the probability of compensatory behavior such as increased driving speed, which could outweigh the safety benefits. The results revealed other contributing factors which more than double the probability of high severity of single-vehicle injury crashes on rural roads. Driver intoxication had the strongest effect, a problem which interestingly was limited to drivers living in Iceland. Not a single foreign tourist driver in this data was noted as being under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs. To strengthen the analysis of the contribution of roadside elements to the severity of run-off-road crashes and to monitor the effects of improvements in the future, it is recommended that additional information on roadside elements be coded and added to the standard police record crash data.

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Author Biographies

Audur Th. Arnadottir, Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration, Iceland

Audur Thora Arnadottir is Head of Traffic and Road Safety at the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration. She holds an M.Sc. degree (1988) in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle. Since 2004, she has been involved in preparing and implementing the national road safety plan of Iceland. She has been a member of Nordic and European working groups focusing on various aspects of road safety and the implementation of the European Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management. Her research and professional interests are focused on improving traffic safety.

CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Validation, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.

Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson, University of Iceland, Iceland

Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson is a Professor of Transportation Engineering in the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iceland. He holds a Ph.D. (2001) and M.S. (1997) in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington. His research has focused on transportation engineering, especially transportation safety, population aging and travel behavior. He teaches courses on transportation engineering and geographic information systems.

CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Supervision, Writing—review & editing.

Sungyop Kim, University of Missouri–Kansas City, the United States of America

Dr. Sungyop Kim is a professor of Urban Planning and Design in the Division of Natural and Built Environment in the School of Science and Engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He holds a Ph.D. (2004) in Urban Design and Planning from the University of Washington and a M.U.R.P. (2000) in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. His research areas include travel behavior and traffic safety, focusing on older adults, and building safe and resilient communities in the context of climate change. He has taught courses in urban surface transportation, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), quantitative planning methods and techniques, land use, and urban planning and design studio.

CRediT contribution: Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing—review & editing.

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