The report is an attempt to describe the effects on accidents of compulsory use of running lights - low beam or special lamps - during daylight in Sweden.
The study is carried out on police reported traffic accidents with personal injury in Sweden. The before and after periods are two years before and two years after the operative day of the law, October 1st 1977.
The use of running lights in the before-period was roughly speaking 50 % and in the after-period over 95 %.
The basic assumption is that the use of running lights in daylight influences multiple accidents in daylight and only those. The method used is to study the relation of daylight to darkness numbers of multiple accidents. The corresponding relation for single vehicle accidents is taken as control.
The estimated total effect depends both on the subdivision of accident data and the method used for accidents with unprotected road users. The estimates vary from 6 to 13 % reduction - from the before-period to the after period - of multiple accidents during daylight or 450 to 1100 less police reported accidents with personal injury per year. The estimated effects are not significant on a 5 % level.
The purpose of the study has been to investigate, on the basis of Finnish statistics, the effect of daytime vehicle lighting, "running lights", on road accidents.
The relevance to this road safety precaution of Finnish figures concerning accidents occuring on the national road network and reported to the police is connected with the fact that various measures have been taken to increase the use of running lights in Finland outside urban areas during the winter period and that these measures have resulted in a very high frequency of use.
The conclusion is that although the analysis of the effect on accidents of the use of running lights is hampered by other precautions and by variations in external conditions, the results obtained from the Finnish statistics strongly indicate that the use of running lights do a great deal to reduce accidents.
Registration of vehicle mileage by the Swedish Vehicle Inspection Co. at the time of the annual inspection, since the end of the 1990s, has provided the opportunity for the "annual" mileage driven by groups of vehicles to be estimated. Mileage figures are the key for the estimation of the accident and injury risks of groups of vehicles and for comparison of these. As regards motorcycles, vehicle data concerning age of owner, year model and insurance class have been analysed with respect to motorcyclists injured in traffic and motorcycle mileages for the years 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. In Sweden and internationally, the motorcycle is the mode that has the highest accident risks and, most of all, injury risks in road traffic. Sweden has the additional problem that motorcycles can only be used during the summer months. This means that every year there is a "warming-up period" at the beginning of the new season. As for all motor vehicles, high motorcycle risks are associated with young drivers and limited driving experience, two properties that are strongly coupled. Some researchers want to add to this lack of judgment and little respect for laws and regulations. The age of the driver is today relatively strictly regulated as regards heavy motorcycles, with an engine power of at least 25 kW, which broadly speaking means that the driver must be 21 years old. Those who were automatically allowed to drive a motorcycle with the help of the old driving licence are today almost 50 or older. Traffic safety analysis has been based, inter alia, on the insurance class of the motorcycle which is determined by the relationship between engine power and vehicle weight. It is found that, in principle, it is the age group younger than 30 who represent the elevated injury risks in the higher insurance classes, while those younger than 25 represent the elevated injury risks in the lowest insurance classes. The total exposure in these insurance classes is very limited. Most of the motorcycle travel occurs in the intermediate insurance classes.
In-depth studies carried out by the Swedish Road Administration 2000-2004 regarding fatal motorcycle accidents show that the number of killed motorcyclists has increased. The number was 39 year 2000 and 56 year 2004. The aim of the report is to answer the following: - Which differences regarding injury consequences for motorcycles can be found between different insurance classes? - How do the injury risks differ between motorcycle drivers of different age and motorcycles in different insurance classes? Since the end of the 1990s Bilprovningen, the Swedish Motor Vehicle Inspection Company, has been recording the mileage of all vehicles at the time of the annual inspection. This makes it possible to estimate in a reliable manner the annual mileages covered by motorcycles. The report accounts for mileages, year models, insurance classes, and the ages of the owner and rider in order to find relationships and to compare accident and injury risks in the period 2000-2004. Our principal conclusions are: o After the year 2000, the number of motorcycles mainly increased in insurance class F7 (motorcycles of very high engine power in relation to their weight) o Motorcycle riders younger than 25 account for the relatively high injury risks in the lower insurance classes. - Motorcycle riders younger than 30 account for the relatively high injury risks in the higher insurance classes (motorcycles of very high engine power) - The number of motorcycle riders who are killed, in relation to injured and severely injured motorcycle riders, is substantially higher for the group of motorcycles in insurance class F8 (upper segment of F7) compared with the other insurance classes.
In the end of the 1990s VTI and Statistics Sweden (SCB) jointly developed an estimation model for the annual vehicle mileage in Sweden for the period 1950-1997, expressed as vehicle kilometres on road . This model is documented in VTI Report No 439, 1999. Since then, SIKA has annually commissioned VTI to estimate the annual vehicle mileage for different vehicle types in Sweden. Initially, a number of minor modifications were made, but in 2003 there was a major change since data from SCB and Bilprovningen (the Swedish Motor Vehicle Inspection Company) were available. There were two reasons for the model change. One was to make use of the detailed information provided by SIKA/SCB/Bilprovningen and the other to categorise lorries according to total weight instead of maximum load. Before 1990 lorries were categorised based on axle spacing and maximum load. In the new version of the model total weight is used to form the categories. The total weight does not include an eventual trailer.
SIKA har, efter en konkurrensupphandling, gett VTI i uppdrag att, utifrån tillgänglig information, redovisa antalet motorfordonskilometer somårligen uträttats på väg fördelat efter vägtyp, fordonstyp och drivmedel för åren 19501997, samt redovisa en beräkningsmodell somkan an-vändas för motsvarande framtida skattningar av trafikarbetet och dess fördelning. Många har varit direkt eller indirekt inblandade i projektet. En ingång till projektet har varit den katalogisering somJörgen Larsson, VTI, gjort av Vägverkets samlade kunskap från trafikräkningar och skattningar av trafikarbete på det statliga vägnätet. En ovärderlig källa är, och har varit, den årliga publikationen Bilismen i Sverige, samtGun-Britt Ljungdahls bearbetning av vägmätaruppgifter vid Svensk Bilprovning. Dessa har utgjort röda trådar genomprojektet. Författarna tackar dem och övrig personal vid VTI och SCB som varit berörda, samt SIKA:s referensgrupp och den projektansvarige vid SIKA, Lennart Thörn.
On behalf of Central Directorate of National Road Administration, VTI has described the speed profile between Iggesund and Hudiksvall before and after the installation of seven camera boxes for automatic speed enforcement. The boxes can be equipped with cameras, which take a front photo if the approaching car is driven with a speed exceeding the speed limit with 10 km/h.
The measurement method means that about 30 randomly selected cars have been followed in each direction by an instrumented car from VTI. The instrument in the car continuously registered the distance to the followed car and the speed of the instrumented car. Hereby the speed profile of the followed car is received for the road section. For every 50 meter of the road section the mean value for all followed cars is calculated and an aggregated speed profile is received.
The speed measurements verify that the mean speed on the experimental section decreased 6 to 7 km/h from June 1998 to June 1999. From June 1998 to June 2000 the mean speed decreasd with 4 to 5 km/h. At the same time decreased the speed variation. The use of the cameras has been very limited and on the same level during 1999 and 2000.
På uppdrag av Vägverket har VTI försökt göra en genomgång av omständigheter och händelseförlopp vid polisrapporterade trafikolyckor 1994-1999. Informationen finns lagrad i Vägverkets Informationssystem för TrafikSäkerhet, VITS. I och med att Vägverket under 1990-talet fick ansvar för den totala trafiksäkerheten i landet påbörjades 1994 registrering av alla polisrapporterade olyckor, det vill säga inte enbart, så som tidigare, de som inträffat på statsvägnätet.
År 2000 upphörde dock den obligatoriska registreringen av trafikolyckor med enbart egendomsskador. Det har därför varit angeläget att bearbeta den information som samlats under den period registreringen varit heltäckande genom att alla polisrapporterade vägtrafikolyckor lagts in. Förutom de upplysningar som direkt noterats på informationsunderlaget kodas uppgifter som härleds ur polisens skisser och beskrivande text. Härigenom erhålls en representativ bild av vad polisen ansett vara bidragande till olyckan eller personskadorna.
De obligatoriska uppgifterna framgår av den officiella trafikskadestatistiken och har inte behandlats i det här notatet. En viktig del av själva olyckstatistiken är att skapa kollisionsmatriser för att till exempel svara frågan - Vem krockar med vem och vem blir skadad? - Kollisionsmatriserna är i hög grad ett fingeravtryck av trafiksäkerhetssituationen och har utgjort en stor del av detta projektarbete. Kollisionsmatriserna ger en flerdimensionell presentation av trafikolycksstatistiken till skillnad från den traditionella ofta endimensionella redovisningen.