Non-motorized Vehicle Traffic Accidents in China: Analysing Road Users’ Precrash Behaviors and Implications for Road Safety

Abstract

The paper aims to explore underlying patterns of non-motorized vehicle (NM, including both regular bicycles and e-bikes) traffic accident occurrences based on precrash behaviors. A quarter-year data of NM accidents was collected by Yinzhou Traffic Police Department of Ningbo, China. Descriptive statistics and Rough Set theory were used to examine rules within different types of NM accidents from temporal, spatial, and behavioral aspects. Some main findings include: behavior patterns of different parties involved vary across different accident types, levels of roads, and intersections; motorized vehicle’s illegal turning as well as NM’s reverse riding are the two key behaviors that deserve concern across all levels of roads and intersection; in addition, for higher level urban roads more attention should be focused on lane violations of motorized vehicles, and for branch roads and intersections prevention efforts could be directed to motorized vehicles’ illegal turning around and NM’s red-light running respectively. Results from this paper could facilitate related staff formulating more targeted policies to make roadways safer.