Evaluation of Potential Safety Modifications by Review of Accident Reports

Abstract

Analysis of accident data for consumer products can be used to identify accident modes and to aid in decisions about the feasibility of safety interventions for reducing risk. Decisions based upon a large accident data set, rather than upon a single accident, are much more likely to address important problems and to avoid creating negative consequences (e.g., increases in other kinds of accidents, loss in product utility). This paper describes the application of accident report analysis to a proposed safety intervention for all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). In order to evaluate the suggested use of conspicuity flags as standard equipment on all ATVs to prevent collision-related accidents, we reviewed 287 operating-ATV-associated “In-Depth Investigations” (conducted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for ATV-associated injuries reported by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System during a 2.5 month period in 1985). It was found that flags could have influenced only a very small portion of ATV injuries at best, and might even have a null or negative net impact when problems are considered. Thus, required usage of flags would be inappropriate for most riding environments.