Residence location of drivers involved in fatal crashes
Introduction
Traffic safety researchers have long known that the majority of fatal crashes occur on rural roads (NHTSA, 1988a, NHTSA, 1988b, NHTSA, 1989, NHTSA, 1991a, NHTSA, 1991b, NHTSA, 1993, NHTSA, 1994a, NHTSA, 1994b). Although recent analyses have illuminated many of the differences between rural and urban crashes (NHTSA, 1996), it has never been clarified as to whether rural crashes involve people who live in rural areas or residents of urban areas traveling on rural roads. Better information about people involved in crashes would foster the development of more effective safety countermeasures.
Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), have shown a consistent relationship between rural and urban crashes, with approximately 55% of fatal crashes on rural roads each year. Fig. 1 shows the number of rural and urban fatal crashes reported in FARS from 1986 through 1993.
The advent of market research tools that combine geographic, demographic, and lifestyle information (now termed `geodemographics') makes it possible to determine the relative involvement of rural and urban dwellers in fatal crashes on a national level. Geodemographic software allows researchers to use individuals' postal zip codes to characterize the urbanization of their residence location. In 1988, FARS began recording drivers' residence zip codes obtained from the drivers' license recorded on the police accident report.
NHTSA recently conducted several independent studies of different population subgroups using geodemographic methods to facilitate the development of safety programs tailored specially for each subgroup (Bradbard and Lisboa-Farrow, 1995; Bradbard et al., 1996; Graham et al., 1995). These analyses revealed that, in each subgroup examined, residents of rural areas and small towns were consistently over-represented in fatal crashes relative to their numbers in the population.
This report augments and presents the data from these analyses and investigates the extent to which rural and urban residents were involved in crashes on rural or urban roadways.
Section snippets
Methods
We created a simple database for analysis by copying selected fields from driver records from the 1988 through 1992 FARS data files. The resulting database contained information including the driver's zip code, age, gender, blood alcohol concentration (BAC), and whether a child of 5 years of age or less died in the crash.
We used the 1995 update of COMPASS PRIZM geodemographic software by Claritas Corporation to place each driver's residence location into one of five levels of population density:
Results
The analyses of the subpopulations by zip code demonstrated consistent results: in each of the populations, residential zip codes of drivers involved in fatal crashes fell predominantly in rural areas and small towns.
Discussion
These analyses clearly demonstrate the over involvement of rural residents in fatal crashes: the majority of fatal crashes involved rural and small-town residents, and the majority of the rural and small-town residents involved in fatal crashes were traveling on rural roads. Conversely, urban residents were primarily involved in urban crashes. Over-involvement of rural and small-town residents in fatal crashes is not limited to only one or two subpopulation groups (e.g. males or females) but is
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