Road Weather Management Program
photos of lightning, trucks plowing snow, an empty road before a storm, and an evacuation
Office of Operations 21st century operations using 21st century technologies

Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Effects of Slippery Road Conditions on Head-on Collisions in Winter

Abstract:

In winter in Hokkaido, Japan, head-on collisions account for 23 percent of all fatal accidents. This rate is 2.0 times that of any other season. However, few studies have addressed such collisions in winter. We conducted in-depth studies on the characteristics of head-on collisions in winter. Eighty-seven percent of the winter head-on collisions occurred on road sections with snowy or icy surface. On snowy or icy roads in winter, head-on collisions are 1.5 times as numerous as any other type of accident. In addition, we conducted a questionnaire survey on road conditions, vehicle attributes including occupancy, and driving behavior before and after crossing the centerline. Over 80 percent of respondents who reported crossing in winter reported that they were paying attention to their driving when they crossed, and especially to the road surface. A model indicated clearly that the principal causes of unexpected behavior were road surface slipperiness and rutting in winter. It may be concluded that slippery and rutted road surface was factor contributing to crossing the centerline in winter.

Source(s):

84th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Hokkaido University in Sapporo (Japan). For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2005

Author:

Hagiwara, Watanabe, Kagaya

Keywords:


Safety
Snow
Ice/Frost
Pavement condition

PDF files can be viewed with the Acrobat® Reader®.

Office of Operations