Citation

Turner DS, Colson CW. Transp. Res. Rec. 1988; 1172: 11-22.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1988, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Transportation agencies at all levels of government have experienced a rash of suits involving alleged negligence. The devastating increase in the number of suits and in the magnitude of financial losses has been overwhelming to many of these transportation agencies. In an effort to minimize these losses, many agencies have organized "risk management" programs. The risk in this case is the probability that the agency will be sued following a highway accident. If all highway accidents could be eliminated, the risk would become zero. Because this is impossible, the next most desirable option is to reduce the number of accidents (especially high-severity collisions) and thus reduce the probability of being sued. Accident data offer an excellent technique for reducing risk by identifying those sites that are of greatest risk to the motorist and thus most deserving of safety treatment. In this paper, several innovative accident data programs are described, and sample computer listings of accident data for several of them are presented. The federal aid safety program, accident inventory listings, high-accident locations, wet pavement accidents, daylight-dark accidents, roadway defect investigations, high-exposure accidents, railroad grade crossings, roadside objects, and bridge collisions are a few of the topics included.

Record URL:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1988/1172/1172-002.pdf

Language: en

Keywords

Accidents; Highway Engineering; Highway Accidents; Risk Studies; Database Systems; Motor Transportation--Management