title: Acquisition and analysis of road incidents based on vehicle dynamics.
abstract: Because motor vehicle crashes have decreased during the last decade in many countries in the world and are more diffuse, local authorities have difficulties to define road safety policies. An experiment with 51 cars of public fleets equipped with a specific Event Data Recorder was carried out in France during one year. The purposes of this research were to evaluate if incident data (critical driving situations) help to understand crashes, and to explore a new way for road infrastructure safety diagnosis. The analysis of 339 genuine incidents and 1237 simple events recorded illustrates the potentiality of such an experiment and provides: some insights about conditions in which incidents occur, a general overview of their distribution according to different road layouts, as well as information on the different levels of accelerations reached. It can be noticed that there is an overrepresentation of incidents in right curves compared to left curves. The simple events involving mostly the infrastructure could be used to detect road defects. Genuine incidents where the vehicle is subjected to important dynamic demands, related to potentially unsafe driving situations, can be used to improve knowledge of the motor vehicle crashes thanks to incident mechanisms analysis.
authors.affiliation: IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Network), Laboratory of Accident Mechanism Analysis, 304 Chemin de la Croix Blanche, 13300 Salon de Provence, France. Electronic address: claire.naude@ifsttar.fr.
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Naude
authors.affiliation: IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Network), Laboratory of Accident Mechanism Analysis, 304 Chemin de la Croix Blanche, 13300 Salon de Provence, France. Electronic address: thierry.serre@ifsttar.fr.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Serre
authors.affiliation: IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Network), Laboratory of Accident Mechanism Analysis, 304 Chemin de la Croix Blanche, 13300 Salon de Provence, France. Electronic address: maxime.dubois-lounis@ifsttar.fr.
authors.forename: Maxime
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dubois-Lounis
authors.affiliation: IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Network), Laboratory of Accident Mechanism Analysis, 304 Chemin de la Croix Blanche, 13300 Salon de Provence, France. Electronic address: jean-yves.fournier@ifsttar.fr.
authors.forename: Jean-Yves
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Fournier
authors.affiliation: IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Network), Laboratory of Accident Mechanism Analysis, 304 Chemin de la Croix Blanche, 13300 Salon de Provence, France. Electronic address: daniel.lechner@ifsttar.fr.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lechner
authors.affiliation: IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Network), Laboratory of Accident Mechanism Analysis, 304 Chemin de la Croix Blanche, 13300 Salon de Provence, France. Electronic address: michele.guilbot@ifsttar.fr.
authors.forename: Michèle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guilbot
authors.affiliation: Cerema (Centre For Studies and Expertise on Risks, Environment, Mobility, and Urban and Country Planning), Technical Division for Territorial Development and Urban Planning 2 rue Antoine Charial, 69426 Lyon, France. Electronic address: vincent.ledoux@cerema.fr.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ledoux
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001336:Automobiles; D000076624:Built Environment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005602:France; D006801:Humans
keywords: Crash; Incident; Infrastructure; Recorder; Road safety; Vehicle dynamics