The National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (short form here) is a landmark study. It’s first time the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has tackled the issue head-on (so to speak) in nearly 30 years. According to the final report, “traveling too fast” was the “critical pre-crash event” in only five percent of the 6,949 cases studied. In fact, in 12.2 percent of crashes, the vehicle was “stopped.” “Turning or crossing at intersection” was the number one critical pre-crash event (36 percent), followed by “Off the edge of the road” (22 percent). That said, NHTSA found “driving too fast for conditions” [NB: not necessarily over the speed limit] and “too fast for curve” were the number one and two “decision errors.” But top of the pile only means they accounted for 8.4 percent and 4.9 percent of “Critical Reasons for Pre-Crash Event Attributed to Drivers.” The major culprit after the jump.
Those of you who consider inadequate driver training and/or lax licensing a national tragedy have new ammunition. “About 41 percent of the driver-related critical reasons were recognition errors that include inattention, internal and external distractions, inadequate surveillance, etc. Of these, the most frequently occurring critical reason was inadequate surveillance that refers to a situation in which a driver failed to look, or looked but did not see, when it was essential to safely complete a vehicle maneuver.
“This critical reason was assigned to drivers in about 21 percent of crashes… About 33 percent of the driver-related critical reasons were decision errors that included too fast for conditions (8.4%), too fast for curve (4.9%), false assumption of others’ actions (4.5%), illegal maneuver (3.8%), and misjudgment of gap or others’ speed (3.2%). In about 10 percent of the crashes, the critical reason was a performance error, such as overcompensation (4.9%), poor directional control (4.7%), etc.”
Although vehicle-related causation table in the short form document was notable by its absence, vehicle manufacturers don’t get off Scott-free.
“The researchers, through their assessment of the vehicles, also assigned critical reasons to the vehicles. In such cases, failure of the tires/wheels was the most frequent vehicle-related critical reason followed by the failure of the braking system. The design and refinement of dashboard warning systems monitoring the status of critical vehicle elements such as the brake system, tire pressure, tread depth, etc., will benefit from such information.”
Poor 1984 Ford Escort wagon. :(
Don’t let facts get in the way of a great “public safety” scam. Think of the Children! (TM)
So. Is it finally time to get serious about installing intersection “Roundabouts” in this country? Try them out in other countries and do some internet research about accident reduction stats in having them. Also…consider the fact that they enable traffic to keep MOVING.
And……true story…..this past summer I witnessed 3 large SUV’s being driven by ladies with cell phones at their ears blast thru a 4-way stop sign intersection near my home on seperate occasions. Glad I ride motorcycles to try and keep my defensive driving habits in place as I needed them driving in my 4 wheeled cage each time.
Moral of the story? More than one in my mind. Anyone care to respond with theirs?
Having completed my driving training in just under two years ago, I would have to say that, yes, our driver’s ed sucks. If I was not a car guy I would probably have taken very little away from my education and would have ended up in a ditch cause I was a tailgating loser.
Fortunately, though, for myself and others, that’s not the case. I started learning how to drive when I was born by watching others and eventually by actually getting some stick time. Now that I have my license and have been driving for 3 years, I still take every opportunity to learn more about driving dynamics and good habits behind the wheel because you’re never as good as you think you are. Bad things can happen while driving but, as this study shows, a lot of those things are avoidable.
Those of you who consider inadequate driver training and/or lax licensing a national tragedy have new ammunition.
Hold on a sec. “inattention, internal and external distractions, inadequate surveillance, etc.”: these are drivers choosing to be stupid. How do you train a driver not to choose to be stupid?
Training is only useful for what isn’t intuitive or what cannot be learned experientially. That boils down to law and rules of the road, both of which are too complex.
If things were run right, drivers’ ed would be memorizing a trifold pamphlet.
I moved to Montreal. That was all the education I needed to learn how to drive, um, “safely”. Ok, not safely per se, but in a way where I will not obliterated by other drivers. Safety and survival are mutually exclusive on the streets of Montreal.
Problem with this is it’s just another set of statistics. Next month a new study will come out that supports the speed argument. Both numbers will be equally flawed.
Personally I just assume everyone in a vehicle is a moron. Speed, inattention, distraction, poor education, it’s all the same. They screwed up, they crashed, end of story. Don’t penalize the rest of us for someone else’s mistakes.
Lets be fair though, Gary, American’s can’t handle roundabouts. There are a few out here near me in a town that probably has the highest percentage of cell-phone talkers and make-up putter-onners in the state and I have personally been nearly run over three times on my motorcycle because people weren’t paying attention. About half the time it’s those people, and the other half it’s people who get confused by the roundabout and treat it like a stop sign. It doesn’t matter what the causes of the accident are legally until there’s a law against being an absolute idiot.
I, for one, wouldn’t be averse to seeing more roundabouts, especially in many of the small-town intersections that are lightly trafficked 90% of the time. Which would include a lot of intersections in my own town, for sure.
The “but people don’t know how to use them in the States!” argument is as much a red herring as the famed “but it won’t make a difference for at least 10 years!” straw man conservatives spent much of 2008 trying to shoot down. That is, by some logic, the only way people can get accustomed to them is if they become more commonplace.
Well, and since I work in public relations, I suppose a good PR campaign, flyers, road signs in the area might help to educate the public before or during the construction of the roundabout.
This would work especially well in small towns, where people could stand at the intersection and hand out educational flyers under an official government-looking road sign saying “NOTICE! SOON THIS INTERSECTION WON’T HAVE ANY TRAFFIC LIGHTS. ASK ME HOW IT’S SAFER. [Arrow pointing to the place where our flyer person is standing.]” I mean, for goodness sakes, the VFW will stand in our intersections practically every weekend in the summer and sell poppies to raise money. This would work much the same way, but would be more of a public education campaign, not a nuisance fundraiser technique.
I am for roundabouts as well. I like them, find them intuitive, and think they would help in suburban traffic.
I love roundabouts, or “circles” as we used to call them when I was growing up in New Jersey. But, Jersey has taken just about all of them out because the dullards on our US roads do not seem to have their wits about them enough to think, look and drive all at the same time. Such skills are critical in a roundabout. Traffic lights are about the dumbest traffic intersection management device, yet they seem to be all that our driving population can mostly get a handle on.
As far as using a PR campaign to get driver’s attention, you could try the Denmark method:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1455868/speed_control_bikini_bandits_danish_copenhagen/
Colorado is split in half by the continental divide. There are very few roundabouts on the eastern side and mostly roundabouts on the western side. I have lived on both sides and for driving the difference is night and day. From my point of view, roundabouts are all pro and no con. Even in the most congested areas the longest I have had to wait to enter a roundabout is about 15-20 seconds. There is no hurry-up-and-wait when you try to make a light only to have it go red and then you turn red as you sit there wasting gas in and empty intersection. I look forward to then just to do a cross footed down shift and crank the wheel. I’ve even gotten on the inside lane and gone round and round just of the hell of it.
They dropped a roundabout in downtown tulsa on mainstreet a year or two ago. I’ve see quite a few baffled by it, a few taking the short way around for a right hand turns. I think if traffic weren’t so light it would be easier for folks to learn but most cars hit it with no other traffic around and if it’s their first time they are baffled.
The one in Ligonier PA however, after decades they have it down cold.
Pittsburgh has a few circles, but they all have traffic lights, and a major thoroughfare (west end circle) is drastically undersized for the capacity it handles.
I think a big part of our problems have to do with the fact that many new drivers will have their licenses for years without entering a major city. In the suburbs, you can drive for a long time without paying any attention, because density is so low that you could be driving blind without getting into an accident. In a proper city, if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to get hit by someone running a red light, or backing out of an alleyway, or making an illegal turn, or what have you.
uhhmn. My informal, but free to my fellow tax payers, traffic study has concluded that most accidents are caused by the loose nut behind the wheel.
My current job has me driving around Greater Boston, lotsa rotaries, most littered with various chunks of automotive debris. Is the concept of Yielding to traffic when merging , too difficult to comprehend?
Why does the headline say 5%? It looks like 8.4%+4.9% to me.
Roundabouts?? That’s the solution? That’s more delusional than the Board of Directors at GM.
You make driving safer by making it simpler, not by introducing more multitasking like roundabouts. With roundabouts, you’re forcing every driver to watch a greater span of road and multiple entry points.
Plus, for people not familiar with an area, trying to watch roundabout traffic AND read all the various route signs at the same time is a recipe for accidents. In NJ, the roundabouts often have multiple route numbers converging and trying to pick them out on the go and looking for the E’s, W’s, S’s and N’s can make it even more confusing (especially at night). I’m quite glad to see NJ replacing the roundabouts.
On the roads, KISS rules.
Don’t read into this study something that isn’t there.
While excess speed may have contributed to the existence of only a small fraction of crashes, it may have contributed to increased severity in a larger number of accidents — and this study does not address this latter point.
Basically, entering an intersection while distracted by a cell-phone might cause you to t-bone the car that’s already there. That’s accident causation. Going twenty miles above the posted limit when doing said t-boning means killing the occupants of the other car, rather than just breaking their legs. That’s accident severity. Just because speed was not directly implicated in the former does not mean that it isn’t implicated in the latter.
There is, perhaps, a further argument to be made regarding indirect causation. Driving faster means you have less reaction time should a problem arise, which means that small distractions or lapses in attention could be more likely to result in an accident, rather than a successful last-minute correction and near-miss. Having spent a few minutes looking at the report, I’m not sure how well corrected it is for this indirect causation problem.
There is, perhaps, a further argument to be made regarding indirect causation.
Your logic’s twisted. If you’re going so fast that you cannot react, then speed is a cause.
While excess speed may have contributed to the existence of only a small fraction of crashes, it may have contributed to increased severity in a larger number of accidents…
Shouldn’t traffic enforcement be about crash prevention?
On a general note: Is this a republic? Remember “Of The People, By The People, For The People”? How do either justify our oppressive, revenue-centric anti-speed crusade?
Not to dig up too old a topic (I was researching this for work) but the state of Massachusetts DOT just spent untold amounts of money getting rid of the two big roundabouts (called “rotaries” locally) that used to get you on and off Cape Cod via the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. The Cape itself still has its share of rotaries, but Mass DOT determined that the two just off the Cape caused more problems than they solved.
Myself, I’m pro roundabout. The way some of the big ones in England are set up, they’re a feat of traffic engineering.