ABSTRACT: Rear-end crashes are one of the most common types of crashes and driving behavior preceding rear-end crashes is a key risk factor. However, the relationships between daily driving habits and rear-end crash risk have not been well evaluated. The aim of this study is to identify the most influential factors in rear-end crash and near-crash (CNC) risk from drivers’ demographic characteristics, daily mobile phone usage, and car-following behaviors. Naturalistic driving study (NDS) data were used to explore the habitual driving behavior among drivers. The One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to identify the effects of gender, age, and driving experience groups. The Tobit model, with both fixed effect and random effect, was developed with demographic characteristics, mobile phone usage, and car-following behavior features as independent variables. The results indicate that there were significant differences in the standard deviation of jerk among drivers’ different individual demographic. Gender, age, phone usage duration, and maximum longitudinal acceleration all had significant positive correlations with CNC rate; experience, maximum longitudinal deceleration (negative value), and standard deviation of jerk were negatively correlated with CNC. The random parameter Tobit model was found to perform better than the basic Tobit model. The results of this study can provide guidance for the design of driving behavior optimization measures.
Xuesong Wang*, Xuxin Zhang, Feng Guo, Yue Gu, Xiaohui Zhu. Car-following Behavior Factors Contributing to Rear-end Crashes and Near-crashes: A Naturalistic Driving Study. Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, 2021. 1.25-29.