The main aim of this research is to develop a generic approach for the utilization of statistical methods to conduct depth investigation of road accident characteristics and causes. This approach is applied in an effort to analyse the 1998 accident database for the main rural roads in Egypt. This database is composed of traffic accident data collected for 14 road sections representing nine major roads of the Egyptian rural road network. The proposed approach is composed of two main stages of analysis. Within each stage, several analytical steps are conducted. The first stage is mainly concerned with developing cluster bar charts, where different characteristics and causes of accidents are portrayed in relation to variations in the three main accident contributing factors, namely types of roads, vehicles and drivers. The second stage is concerned with conducting in-depth statistical analysis of the collected accident data. Within this stage, four levels of statistical investigations were conducted. These are meant to examine a number of issues.