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The Safety Impact of Road Debris: Updated Prevalences of Crashes, Injuries, and Deaths in the United States, 2018–2023
Road debris is a traffic safety concern for all road users. While there is no singular definition of road debris, it generally refers to any object on a roadway that does not belong in the driving environment. Common examples include unsecured cargo that fell from a vehicle or parts that separated from a vehicle. Road debris can contribute to crashes in three main ways: (a) one vehicle may be struck by debris that fell from or was set in motion by another vehicle; (b) a vehicle may strike debris on the roadway; or (c) a driver may crash into another road user or object after trying to avoid debris in the road. The current study seeks to quantify the contribution of road debris to motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and deaths in the United States using the most recent available data. The current study performed an in-depth analysis of police crash report narratives and diagrams from crashes that occurred in the state of Michigan in years 2018 through 2023 to examine the role of road debris in crashes with general characteristics suggestive of possible debris involvement, and then used those results in conjunction with national-level crash data to estimate how many crashes, injuries, and deaths nationwide were attributable to road debris.