Factors Contributing to Pedestrian and Bicycle Crashes on Rural Highways

摘要

Approximately 25% of pedestrian and bicycle fatal and injury accidents occur on rural highways. Rural highways have different characteristics than urban highways, such as higher average vehicle speeds and a lack of sidewalk provisions that force pedestrians and bicyclists to use the shoulder or travel lane. There has been very little prior research on these rural issues. For instance, the extent to which the presence, quality, and width of shoulders affects pedestrian and bicyclist accidents has not been studied, but may be an important factor in justifying additional costs associated with building improved shoulders. Virtually no research has been conducted on rural roadways where crash types were defined with more detailed coding than exists on standard police forms and where the crash data could be linked with roadway characteristics and traffic counts. The goals of this study are first, to examine differences between pedestrian and bicycle crashes in urban and rural settings in North Carolina, and second, to identify specific crash types and crash locations on rural highways that are of high priority for treatment development. North Carolina data were used in this study because of the presence of supplemental information providing much more detailed crash typing than is available in other states.