INVESTIGATING THE CAUSES OF TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS FOR DUHOK – ZAKHO INTERNATIONAL ROAD

Abstract

Traffic accidents are considered as one of the main causes of death in the world. In order to reduce number of accidents, traffic safety refers to the methods and measures used to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. In Kurdistan, more than 1,000 inhabitants are killed in road accidents every year and about 200,000 are injured. This study focuses on investigating the reasons of accidents occurring along Duhok-Zakho international road, and identification of high accident locations (HALs) using accident number, accident rate and rate quantity control methods. Data such as the type of accident, the causes for each type, the traffic flow and geometric design have been collected for nine segments of the road from 2013 to 2016. The results indicate that the rear-end collision is the highest frequency among other types of accidents and the year 2014 has the highest number of accidents. There is an urgent need for specific countermeasures to be implemented (e.g. installing more speed limit camera, lane marking). Hence, this study has shed light on this road to find the optimum solution for such safety problem.