HEAVY VEHICLE SAFETY

摘要

With the deregulation of freight transport in South Aanica the number of heavy vehicleson the road network has increased drastically. The number of accidents involving heavyvehicles has therefore also become a cause for concern. In terms of safety, it is not onlythe physical characteristics of heavy vehicles such as their acceleration, deceleration,mass, size and stability that sets them aside from light vehicles, but also the driver andtrip length characteristics.In a recent study the involvement of heavy vehicles in different types of accidents onTrunk Roads in the Cape Province was determined. From the traffic data base of theRoads Branch it was possible to calculate the exposure of vehicles in terms of thenumber of vehicle-kilometers travelled by the two modes, namely light and heavyvehicles respectively. The accident rates for the two modes for 191 road sectionsinvolving more than 10 400 accidents over a two year period were determined for thefollowing types of accident:1.fatal;2.serious injury;3.slight injury;4.damage only;5.head to rear;6.head-on;7.side swipe;8.overturning and9.single vehicle.It was found that on rural roads heavy vehicles have a higher total accident rate thanlight vehicles. There is not a large difference in the severity of accidents between thetwo modes of transport. Heavy vehicles are much more involved in rear-end and sideswipe accidents but less so in overturning and single vehicle accidents. The rate atwhich head-on collisions occur is the same for heavy and light vehicles