233495 A comparison of injury severity and citations in commercial vehicle crashes

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Andrea Thomas, MS , Intermountain Injury Control Research Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Larry Cook, PhD, MStat , Intermountain Injury Control Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Lenora Olson, MA, PhD , Intermountain Injury Control Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

Objective: To better understand the consequences of crashes involving commercial vehicles (CVs) by comparing injury severity and citations issued to drivers in CV-passenger vehicle (PV), PV only, and CV only crashes.

Methods: 2008 Utah police-reported crash records were used to produce counts and percents.

Results: There were 2,867 CV-PV crashes. Almost a quarter (22.4%, n=643) of CV-PV crashes resulted in injury or death, but citations were issued to less than 50% of crashes.

PV occupants in CV-PV crashes are five times more likely to be killed and had 2.4% more non-incapacitating and incapacitating injuries than occupants in PV only crashes. Occupants in CV only crashes are 3.7 times more likely to be killed or injured than CV occupants in CV-PV crashes. PV occupants experienced 14 more deaths and were 6 times more likely to receive injury than CV occupants in CV-PV crashes.

PV drivers were cited for improper lane travel in 31.7% of CV-PV crashes compared to just 12.4% of PV only crashes. Following too close was the most issued citation in CV-PV and CV only crashes.

Discussion: Crashes involving CVs are few but very severe. Almost a quarter of CV-PV crashes resulted in injury or death. These results suggest PV and CV drivers may behave differently around other CVs. Interventions focusing on unsafe driving behaviors around CVs are warranted.

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify differences in injury severity among passenger vehicle occupants in commercial vehicle-passenger vehicle and passenger vehicle only crashes. 2. Describe types of citations issued in crashes involving commercial vehicles.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been a practicing statistician in public health for two years and I was involved in the data acquisition and analysis of this abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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