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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

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Title:

Quantifying the Relationship between Skid Resistance and Wet Weather Accidents for Virginia Data

Abstract:

One of the factors contributing to motor vehicle crashes is lack of sufficient friction at the tire-pavement interface. Although the relationship between surface friction and roadway safety has long been recognized, attempts to quantify the effect of pavement skid resistance on wet accident rates have produced inconsistent results. This Master's thesis analyzes the relationships between skid resistance, accident, and traffic data for the state of Virginia. The correlation between wet skid resistance measured with a locked-wheel trailer using a smooth tire and wet accident rates is examined. Additionally, the influence of traffic volumes on accident rates is considered. Regression analyses indicated that there is statistically significant effect of skid resistance on wet accident rate; the wet accident rate increases with decreasing skid numbers. However, as expected, skid resistance alone does a poor job of modeling the variability in the wet accident rates. In addition, the wet accident rate also decreases with increasing traffic volume.

Source(s):

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10312004-081948/unrestricted/Kuttesch_ThesisFinal.pdf

Date: 2004

Author:

Kuttesch

Keywords:


Safety
Rain
Pavement condition
Volume
Pavement friction
Precipitation

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