Book Description

This work was performed to investigate how the likelihood of a two-car crash depends on the driver age and car mass for each of the two involved cars, and also to examine the special case of cars of similar mass crashing into each other. This work uses data on 108 044 cars involved in police reported two-car crashes occurring in New York State in 1971 and 1972. The data reflect the mix of cars on the roads at that time, so that most of the involved cars were made in the 1960's. The data were fitted to a four variable model, the four variables being the driver age (in three categories) and car mass (in five categories) for each of the two involved cars. Car registrations are used to estimate exposure. The special case of crashes between cars of similar mass is considered because of prior results on driver injuries in such crashes. The model, which reproduces well the main effects in the data, indicates that each driver combination may be considered to have a propensity to be involved in two-car crashes that depends on driver age and car mass.