Study of Farm Vehicle Crashes in Delaware

Abstract

The increasing number of traffic conflicts between farm vehicles (FVs) and other motorists on public roads has raised safety concerns for Delaware transportation authorities. Farm Vehicle Crashes (FVCs) are less frequent than passenger car, truck, and motorcycle crashes and therefore, have not received proper attention in the past. This study provides a descriptive statistical analysis of FVCs in Delaware between May 2005 and August 2020 to present a better understanding of the characteristics of these crashes. The crash data was extracted from the DelDOT crash database and the State Police Annual Reports. The statistical analysis was performed using MATLAB and crash mapping was performed using ArcGIS Pro. The results show that an average of 14 FVCs occurred each year in this period; however, the annual number of FVCs has been constantly increasing since 2016. The percentage of fatal crashes among FVCs was found to be 3.7 times the state’s average for all crashes. Sussex county accounted for nearly half of these crashes. About two-thirds of FVCs took place within the rural boundaries and the rest in urban zip codes. Two peaks were observed throughout the year, one from April to July and another from August to October. The majority of the FVCs occurred during daylight, in clear weather and on a dry surface; however, crashes during dark (not-lighted) conditions were nearly 2.5 times more likely to result in injury than in daylight. Major collectors were associated with the highest risk of FVCs among all function classes. Rollovers and head-on collisions were few in numbers but had the highest percentage of personal injuries. Rear-end collisions, the most common collision type, were found to be overrepresented among crashes under dark (not-lighted) conditions. In conclusion, this study shows that the severity of FVCs is higher than the average for all crashes. Further, the high percentage of rear-end FVCs under dark conditions implies the importance of improving the visibility, lighting, and marking of FVs.