Citation

Richter T, Ruhl S, Ortlepp J, Bakaba E. Transp. Res. Proc. 2016; 14: 4140-4149.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publications)

DOI

10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.385

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Overtaking accidents have one of the most serious consequences of accidents on German rural roads. The aim of this paper is to determine the infrastructural and traffic related variables which influence the occurrence and consequences of overtaking accidents as well as the overtaking behavior of drivers in order to derive appropriate measures to avoid these serious accidents. In a comprehensive network analysis in five German federal states the most accident-prone road sections with relations to overtaking process were determined. The result was a ranking of 500 rural road sections with the highest accident cost density. On these 500 road sections the configuration of traffic regulation (signs and/or markings) were collected on 2.235 kilometers of roads and a total of 1,557 overtaking accidents are directly assigned to the individual road characteristics. Subsequently the road layout of the first 100 accident-prone road sections was reproduced and analyses of the influence of road design parameters (curve radius, sight distance, signs, markings) on overtaking accidents have been carried out. Finally 50 road sections have been selected, on which microscopic accident analyses and analyses of overtaking behavior were carried out. Diverse correlations between operational and infrastructural road characteristics and overtaking accidents and driver behavior were found out. The main deficiencies were established in road sections with insufficient sight distance for overtaking. For the accident-prone road sections a catalogue of measures had been developed. The given recommendations will have beneficial influences on overtaking behavior and their practice will lead to an increase in safety on two-lane rural roads.

Language: en