Analysis of Risk Factors Affecting the Size and Severity of Traffic Crashes in Riyadh

摘要

Recently, growing concern has been shifting towards traffic safety in the kingdom ofSaudi Arabia (KSA). KSA has a unique situation regarding traffic safety problems. KSA can beclassified as one of the developed countries in terms of the magnitude and quality of the roadnetwork available and compatible with international standards. However, it can also beconsidered as one of the developing countries as the rate of increase in the number of roadcrashes in the KSA is substantial compared with the relevant figures of other developingcountries and other countries of the Gulf region and hence, more research efforts are still needed.This paper aims at better examining the nature and causes of fatal and serious traffic crashes inKSA so that remedies and/or future studies could be suggested.For this purpose, data from 11545 reported fatal and injury traffic crashes that haveoccurred in Riyadh (the capital of KSA), during the period 2004-2011, were used in the analysis.A Logistic regression model was estimated and the results revealed that crash reason (speeding),damages in public property, day of the week, crash location (non-intersection location), and pointof collision (head-on) were the significant variables affecting the binary target variable (fatal andnon-fatal crashes).In addition, the Structural Equation modeling approach was developed to identify andquantify the impacts of significant variables influencing crash size (e.g., no. of injuries, no. ofvehicles involved in the crash), one of the important indices that measure the level of safety oftransportation facilities. The results showed that road factor was the most significant factoraffecting the size of crash followed by the driver and environment factors. Moreover, acomparison between the characteristics of the Saudi severe crashes and a sample of US severecrashes (as an example of a developed country) are also provided and discussed. The resultshighlight the need for country specific countermeasures to safety problems.