Analysis of heavy truck accident severity

Abstract

This paper presents a macro empirical study of injuries and severity, and their contributory factors, for heavy truck accidents. This analysis is carried out through the examination of the fatal injury and non‐fatal injury odds ratio indices for a statistically best‐fit, log‐linear model. The statistical procedures used were the stepwise, backward elimination, log‐linear modeling with a critical significance level of 0.05. The analysis was conducted on the set of accident severity contributory independent variables (main‐effects) and all possible two‐way interactions of these variables (interaction effects) for articulated heavy trucks. Among the findings of the study is that it would appear to be more effective to decrease the accident rates for these trucks rather than to try to limit their resulting severities in attempting to reduce the toll of heavy truck accidents. Copyright © 1988 John Wiley & Sons Ltd