p107: weather-related road accident: a brief review

road accident severity may be influenced by a number of various systematic causal factors. the weather and road accidents have a close relationship with each other and a number of methods have been proposed for measuring the risk of a road accident with rainy, foggy, and snowy weather and high winds. recent studies indicate that road collision rates increase during precipitation. the weather was found to be a major factor affecting accident number. while other studies believe that the weather might be a contributing factor in accidents, though not necessarily the principal one. the important thing is to understand the link between different climates and travel risk. on very wet days the number of accidents was often double that of corresponding dry days. also, single-vehicle accidents were affected more by wet weather than were most other types of accident. statistical testing shows that the average frequency of accidents, during periods of rainfall, is significantly different from the average frequency at other times. on the other hand, data suggest that accident risk returns to normal, despite the lingering effects of wet road conditions. we conclude that traffic weather forecast could be considered as a lowering weather-related road accident factor.