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Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012

BACKGROUND: Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of injury mortality. Adverse weather and road conditions have the potential to affect the likelihood of motor vehicle fatalities through several pathways. However, there remains a dearth of assessments associating adverse weather conditions to fa...

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Autores principales: Saha, Shubhayu, Schramm, Paul, Nolan, Amanda, Hess, Jeremy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5100176/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27821115
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-016-0189-x
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author Saha, Shubhayu
Schramm, Paul
Nolan, Amanda
Hess, Jeremy
author_facet Saha, Shubhayu
Schramm, Paul
Nolan, Amanda
Hess, Jeremy
author_sort Saha, Shubhayu
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of injury mortality. Adverse weather and road conditions have the potential to affect the likelihood of motor vehicle fatalities through several pathways. However, there remains a dearth of assessments associating adverse weather conditions to fatal crashes in the United States. We assessed trends in motor vehicle fatalities associated with adverse weather and present spatial variation in fatality rates by state. METHODS: We analyzed the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) datasets from 1994 to 2012 produced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that contains reported weather information for each fatal crash. For each year, we estimated the fatal crashes that were associated with adverse weather conditions. We stratified these fatalities by months to examine seasonal patterns. We calculated state-specific rates using annual vehicle miles traveled data for all fatalities and for those related to adverse weather to examine spatial variations in fatality rates. To investigate the role of adverse weather as an independent risk factor for fatal crashes, we calculated odds ratios for known risk factors (e.g., alcohol and drug use, no restraint use, poor driving records, poor light conditions, highway driving) to be reported along with adverse weather. RESULTS: Total and adverse weather-related fatalities decreased over 1994–2012. Adverse weather-related fatalities constituted about 16 % of total fatalities on average over the study period. On average, 65 % of adverse weather-related fatalities happened between November and April, with rain/wet conditions more frequently reported than snow/icy conditions. The spatial distribution of fatalities associated with adverse weather by state was different than the distribution of total fatalities. Involvement of alcohol or drugs, no restraint use, and speeding were less likely to co-occur with fatalities during adverse weather conditions. CONCLUSIONS: While adverse weather is reported for a large number of motor vehicle fatalities for the US, the type of adverse weather and the rate of associated fatality vary geographically. These fatalities may be addressed and potentially prevented by modifying speed limits during inclement weather, improving road surfacing, ice and snow removal, and providing transit alternatives, but the impact of potential interventions requires further research. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0189-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-51001762016-11-08 Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012 Saha, Shubhayu Schramm, Paul Nolan, Amanda Hess, Jeremy Environ Health Research BACKGROUND: Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of injury mortality. Adverse weather and road conditions have the potential to affect the likelihood of motor vehicle fatalities through several pathways. However, there remains a dearth of assessments associating adverse weather conditions to fatal crashes in the United States. We assessed trends in motor vehicle fatalities associated with adverse weather and present spatial variation in fatality rates by state. METHODS: We analyzed the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) datasets from 1994 to 2012 produced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that contains reported weather information for each fatal crash. For each year, we estimated the fatal crashes that were associated with adverse weather conditions. We stratified these fatalities by months to examine seasonal patterns. We calculated state-specific rates using annual vehicle miles traveled data for all fatalities and for those related to adverse weather to examine spatial variations in fatality rates. To investigate the role of adverse weather as an independent risk factor for fatal crashes, we calculated odds ratios for known risk factors (e.g., alcohol and drug use, no restraint use, poor driving records, poor light conditions, highway driving) to be reported along with adverse weather. RESULTS: Total and adverse weather-related fatalities decreased over 1994–2012. Adverse weather-related fatalities constituted about 16 % of total fatalities on average over the study period. On average, 65 % of adverse weather-related fatalities happened between November and April, with rain/wet conditions more frequently reported than snow/icy conditions. The spatial distribution of fatalities associated with adverse weather by state was different than the distribution of total fatalities. Involvement of alcohol or drugs, no restraint use, and speeding were less likely to co-occur with fatalities during adverse weather conditions. CONCLUSIONS: While adverse weather is reported for a large number of motor vehicle fatalities for the US, the type of adverse weather and the rate of associated fatality vary geographically. These fatalities may be addressed and potentially prevented by modifying speed limits during inclement weather, improving road surfacing, ice and snow removal, and providing transit alternatives, but the impact of potential interventions requires further research. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0189-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5100176/ /pubmed/27821115 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-016-0189-x Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Saha, Shubhayu
Schramm, Paul
Nolan, Amanda
Hess, Jeremy
Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012
title Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012
title_full Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012
title_fullStr Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012
title_full_unstemmed Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012
title_short Adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States, 1994-2012
title_sort adverse weather conditions and fatal motor vehicle crashes in the united states, 1994-2012
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5100176/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27821115
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-016-0189-x
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