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Traffic related crashes cause more than 38,000 fatalities every year in the United States. They are the leading cause of death among drivers up to 54 years in age and incur $871 million in losses each year. Driver errors contribute to about 94% of these crashes. In response, automotive companies have been developing vehicles with […]
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fueling Station Locator contains information on public and private nonresidential alternative fueling stations in the United States and Canada and currently tracks ethanol (E85), biodiesel, compressed natural gas, electric vehicle (EV) charging, hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, and propane stations. Of these fuels, EV charging continues to experience rapidly changing […]
We have developed components of a system to identify and measure vehicle and pedestrian trajectories, speed, inter-vehicle gaps and using video feeds from arbitrary traffic surveillance cameras. The potential impact to transportation safety is the ability to detect crashes in real-time and capturing near crashes or accidents and their context. Real-time analysis allows for immediate […]
The Crash Investigation Sampling System provides a comprehensive national traffic crash database. Data collection is accomplished at 32 geographical sites, called Primary Sampling Units. These data are weighted to represent all police-reported motor vehicle crashes occurring in the United States during the year involving passenger cars, light trucks, and light vans that were towed. This […]
Objective: Automatic emergency braking (AEB) that detects pedestrians has great potential to reduce pedestrian crashes. The objective of this study was to examine its effects on real-world police-reported crashes. Methods: Two methods were used to assess the effects of pedestrian-detecting AEB on pedestrian crash risk. Vehicles with and without the system were examined on models […]
With the rising number of cases and deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, nations and local governments, including many across the U.S., imposed travel restrictions on their citizens. This travel restriction order led to a significant reduction in traffic volumes and a generally lower exposure to crashes. However, recent preliminary statistics in the US suggest an […]
Incident response and emergency services personnel, including police, firefighters, emergency medical services, and towing operators, are at risk of being struck by passing motorists while they are working at the roadside. Stakeholders such as AAA and others strive to reduce these professionals’ risk of being injured or killed on the job through advocacy, education, and implementation […]
This study had two overarching objectives: 1) examine changes in the prevalence of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in vehicles owned by a large sample of older drivers; and 2) examine changes in how these older drivers learned to use and what they thought about ADAS. This study updates a previous research brief that investigated […]
A disproportionally high number of serious vehicle crashes (25% of fatal crashes) occur on horizontal curves, even though curves represent only a fraction of the roadway network (5% of highway miles) (1). This is a high-priority problem that has great interest among transportation agencies throughout the nation because their ultimate goal is to reduce serious […]
For more than a decade, the annual Traffic Safety Culture Index (TSCI) survey has contributed to deepening our understanding of public perceptions of, attitudes toward, and engagement in unsafe driving behaviors. Responses from 2020, when exceptional conditions were observed on roadways due to the COVID-19 pandemic, can provide insights on America’s traffic safety culture during the pandemic […]