Young Drivers and Run-Off-the-Road Crashes

Motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of death among young Americans. They also experience higher percentage of single vehicle, Run-off-the-road (ROR) crashes compared to other drivers. When looking at the methods of improving the alarming death rate of young drivers, it is important to identify the determinants of higher crash and injury severity. With that intention, the study described in this paper developed the models to identify the factors that are influential in making an injury severity difference to young drivers involved in ROR crashes. Since the outcome of the models, crash severity, is of discrete nature, logistic regression was identified as the most suitable approach and a set of sequential binary logistic regression models was developed to identify the influential factors. The intention was to predict the crash severity outcome of single vehicle ROR crashes involving young drivers. The developed models were validated and the accuracy was tested by using a set of crash data that were not utilized in the model development, where results were found to be satisfactory. Factors influential in making a crash severity difference to young drivers involved in ROR were then identified through the models. Factors such as influence of alcohol or drugs, ejection in the crash, point of impact, rural crash locations, existence of curve or grade, and speed of the vehicle were significantly important towards increasing the probability of having a more severe ROR crash. Restraint device usage and being a male clearly reduced the tendency of high severity and some other variables such as weather condition, residence location, and physical condition were not important at all.