Abstract
A naturalistic driving study involving 100 light vehicles equipped with video cameras and other data collection equipment was recently completed. The resulting data set was searched to identify critical incidents involving both light vehicles (LVs) and heavy vehicles (HVs). Each incident was coded on a number of dimensions including the type of incident (what happened) and the Critical Reason for the incident (why it happened). Goals of the analysis included gaining a better understanding of LVHV interactions and providing background information that would serve as a necessary prerequisite to the development of crash countermeasures. For 217 of the 246 LV-HV interaction incidents recorded, the event initiator was attributed to either the LV driver (64%) or the HV driver (36%). The most frequent Incident Type for LV driver initiated incidents was Late Braking for Stopped/Stopping Traffic (41.3%), followed by Lane Change Without Sufficient Gap (21.7%). The most frequently noted Critical Reasons for LV driver initiated incidents were Aggressive Driving Behavior (24.6%), Too Fast for Conditions (15.2%), and Internal Distraction (13.8%). Given that LV drivers were more likely to have initiated an incident, it is believed that efforts at addressing the LV-HV interaction problem should include focusing on the LV driver.
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