Citation

Shen S, Pope CN, Stamatiadis N, Zhu M. J. Saf. Res. 2019; 71: 243-249.

Affiliation

The Center for Injury Research and Policy, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States; Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States; Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States. Electronic address: Motao.Zhu@nationwidechildrens.org.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, U.S. National Safety Council, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsr.2019.09.024

PMID

31862035

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The quasi-induced exposure (QIE) method has been widely implemented into traffic safety research. One of the key assumptions of QIE method is that not-at-fault drivers represent the driving population at the time of a crash. Recent studies have validated the QIE representative assumption using not-at-fault drivers from three-or-more vehicle crashes (excluding the first not-at-fault drivers; D3_other) as the reference group in single state crash databases. However, it is unclear if the QIE representativeness assumption is valid on a national scale and is a representative sample of driving population in the United States. The aims of this study were to assess the QIE representativeness assumption on a national scale and to evaluate if D3_other could serve as a representative sample of the U.S. driving population.

METHOD: Using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), distributions of driver gender, age, vehicle type, time, and roadway type among the not-at-fault drivers in clean two-vehicle crashes, the first not-at-fault drivers in three-or-more-vehicle crashes, and the remaining not-at-fault drivers in three-or-more vehicle crashes were compared to the driver population observed in NOPUS.

RESULTS: The results showed that with respect to driver gender, vehicle type, time, and roadway type, drivers among D3_other did not show statistical significant difference from NOPUS observations. The age distribution of D3_other driver was not practically different to NOPUS observations.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we conclude that D3_other drivers in FARS represents the driving population at the time of the crash. Practical applications: Our study provides a solid foundation for future studies to utilize D3_other as the reference group to validate the QIE representativeness assumption and has potential to increase the generalizability of future FARS studies.

Copyright © 2019 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Clean multiple vehicle crashes; Fatality Analysis Reporting System; Quasi-induced exposure; Representativeness assumption