An exploratory study and analysis of secondary data of road traffic collisions in the United Kingdom resulting in human injury with the aim of influencing the design of products

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse secondary data, which originates from an evidence base opposed to a perceived need that the industry often relies on. The industry in question is road transport infrastructure. The industry is made up of numerous Government and private sectors all collectively responsible for providing a variety of products that makes the road network a safe place to drive for the public.

Although the United Kingdom has one of the safest road casualty records in the world it still sees over two thousand deaths a year and thousands more seriously injured. It is the Government’s goal to improve road safety to eliminate fatalities. There are many avenues for improvement currently being made such as driver education and vehicle safety. However, to date there has been limited research into road infrastructure, especially research that considers an evidence base.

This study uses data from historic road traffic collisions as its evidence base. The data is collected at every road traffic collision where an injury has occurred by trained Police Officers and held by the Government’s Department for Transport. This study uses statistical analysis along with visual cues to determine locations with multiple collisions that could benefit from improved product design.

Due to the complexity and political issues within the industry, plus time constraints, it is known that the results of this study will not be implemented into government departments and product designers until after this study is complete. With this in mind the study highlighted four typical types of location that are deemed dangerous. They can be described easily as; high speed rural road, high-speed junctions, pedestrian crossing not within a junction and collisions with permanent objects off the road. These were determined using years of historic data and should therefore be reviewed for their safety. There are multiple locations with these characteristics. It is intended for these results to be shared with industry to seek new ways in which product design can improve the safety of these types of location.

Finally, this study created an additional benefit alongside the analysis of the data that in the long-term road safety can be improved. This benefit is the creation of a road traffic collision database. The database includes all road traffic collision data and allows the user to compute various factors that will ultimately provide areas, including local Authorities, with road safety difficulties.