Journal article
Does crash risk increase when emergency vehicles are driving with lights and sirens?
Accident analysis and prevention, Vol.113, pp.257-262
04/2018
DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2018.02.002
PMID: 29444480
Abstract
•Police vehicles have a significant increased risk of crashing while driving in emergency mode than usual mode.•Driving in emergency mode does not increase crash risk among ambulance and fire truck drivers.•Women driving emergency vehicles are more likely to be involved in a crash.
Emergency vehicles, such as police, ambulances, and fire vehicles, need to arrive at the scene of emergencies as quickly as possible, and thus they often travel in emergency mode – using their lights and sirens and often bypassing traffic signals. We examined whether travelling in emergency mode increased crash risk among police, ambulance and fire vehicles.
We conducted a quasi-induced exposure analysis using data from the Iowa Crash Database for the period of 2005 through 2013. The data are maintained by the Iowa Department of Transportation (IADOT), Office of Driver Services (ODS) and includes all investigating police officer's reports of motor vehicle crashes. The quasi-induced exposure method is an approach to calculate crash risk in the absence of exposure data using vehicles without a contributing cause (did not contribute to the crash) as a proxy for the baseline driving population.
From 2005 – 2013, police vehicles were involved in 2406 crashes and ambulances and fire vehicles were involved in 528 crashes. Police vehicles were 1.8 times more likely to crash while driving in emergency mode than usual mode; this was a statistically significant increase. Ambulance and fire vehicles were not more likely to crash in emergency mode compared with usual mode. For police, other factors that contributed to crash risk included gender, age, icy/snowy roads, unpaved roads, and intersections. For ambulances and fire vehicles, other factors that contributed to crash risk included gender, age, weekends, icy/snowy roads and urban locations.
Crash risk increased when police vehicles drove with lights and sirens but did not increase for ambulance and fire vehicles. Further research is necessary to develop and evaluate strategies to mitigate crash risk among police vehicles. Cultural approaches which prioritize transportation safety in conjunction with reaching the scene as quickly as possible may be warranted.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Does crash risk increase when emergency vehicles are driving with lights and sirens?
- Creators
- Celestin Missikpode - Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USACorinne Peek-Asa - Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USATracy Young - Injury Prevention and Research Center, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USACara Hamann - Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Accident analysis and prevention, Vol.113, pp.257-262
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.aap.2018.02.002
- PMID
- 29444480
- NLM abbreviation
- Accid Anal Prev
- ISSN
- 0001-4575
- eISSN
- 1879-2057
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Grant note
- name: the Iowa Department of Transportation; DOI: 10.13039/100008949, name: University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/2018
- Academic Unit
- Public Health Administration; Occupational and Environmental Health; Epidemiology; Nursing; Center for Social Science Innovation; Injury Prevention Research Center; Public Policy Center (Archive)
- Record Identifier
- 9983997997902771
Metrics
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