Citation

White I. Accid. Reconstr. J. 2021; 31(5): 12-16.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Accident Reconstruction Journal)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The author participated in the reconstruction of a fatal road accident on a British motorway where one driver swerved into the lane another vehicle was traveling in, approaching from the rear. This paper discusses lane changing, swerving manoeuvers, and actual reaction time on motorways and dual carriageways. The research set out to determine the average time for a vehicle to change lanes in fast flowing traffic, and the results do not apply to traffic congestion conditions. The method of data collection was the use of a stopwatch to record the interval between the initiation and end of the lane change, and recording the type of vehicles involved. Data was collected in the U.K., France, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. The results are preliminary, and show that while there is some variation by country, normal lane changes by cars on motorways or dual carriageways can be defined as: 15th percentile - 4 seconds, 50th percentile - 5 seconds, 85th percentile - 6 seconds. There are variations by driver age and type of vehicle. The database shows that the average car lane change takes over 4 seconds for the majority of incidents, and when applied to road traffic accidents, may indicate whether the lane change caused an incident, or whether the rear-approaching driver failed to anticipate the lane change ahead was safely executed.

Language: en

Keywords

Crashes; Freeways; Netherlands; United Kingdom; Crash data; Lane changing; France; Divided highways; Switzerland