Driving Style Association with Crash Severity Using SHRP 2 Dataset
Keywords: driving behaviors, driving styles, crash severity, naturalistic driving
This is the second part of the study of driving style using SHRP 2 naturalistic driving data. (SHRP 2 program)
Studies have examined driving styles and how they are associated with crash risks. One common approach relies on self-report questionnaires to categorize respondents based on pre-defined driving styles and to query crash involvement history. Previously, we identified three distinct driving styles based on real-world vehicle kinematics (limited to data from straight road, highway driving) in the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study database (Link). The second stage of the study aimed to study how these driving styles, derived from real-road driving, may relate to crash severity, specifically crash and non-crash safety critical events (SCEs).
Joint modelling of the number of crash and non-crash SCEs retrieved from the SHRP2 database were analyzed using a Diagonal Inflated Bivariate Poisson (DIBP) model. Variables examined included the abovementioned driving styles and various driver characteristics. Results: Among driving styles examined, maintanence of lower speeds and more adaptive responses to driving conditions were associated with fewer crashes given an SCE occurred. Longer driving experiences, more miles driven last year, and being female also reduced the number of crashes. Interestingly, older drivers were associated with both increased number of crashes and increased number of non-crash SCEs.
Driving styles identified from naturalistic data provided useful insights about crash severity risk. Future work may leverage more variables from SHRP2 database and widen the scope to examine different traffic conditions for a more complete picture of driving styles. Practical applications: Understanding how driving styles and crash severity relate have implications for driver education to improve driver safety. It is also of interest to vehicle automation designers for designing systems that may better respond to other drivers of various driving styles on the road
Publication: Chen, K.-T, Chen, H.-Y.W. (Under review). Modeling the Impact of Driving Styles on Crash Severity Level Using SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Data. Journal of Safety Research.