Book Description

This study focuses on the analysis of alcohol impaired crashes in the State of Ohio. The alarming rate of alcohol related crashes across the country and across the state are cause for major concern to all peoples on the roadway, and to all citizens. In this study crash data from 2008 to 2012 is analyzed in order to determine the contributing factors of two types of alcohol related crashes. Mixed logit models are developed in order to determine the impact of crash characteristics including any unobserved correlated characteristics. Four models are developed for two comparisons using crash record information from the OH-1 uniform crash reporting form. One comparison outlines the difference between the injury severities of passenger car operators and motorcycle riders in single unit alcohol related crashes. The second model outlines the contributing factors for impaired and non-impaired operators in the same two-unit alcohol related crash. The models both identify the use of safety equipment as a major contributing factor limiting the severity of injuries to operators. The study also identifies rate of safety equipment use amongst impaired and non-impaired operators, finding a much higher rate of use with non-impaired operators. All four models also show a strong correlation to the size of the vehicle being driven with injury severity. The data set also identifies the critical age ranges for impaired operators, finding in passenger cars the age range is much younger, 20-39, while motorcycle riders the age group is found to be older, 30-49. Other results focus on roadway geometry, collision type, and vehicle speed.