 |
| pedestrian crashes |
| PBCAT: What is it? |
|
What is PBCAT
In 2004, 4,641 pedestrians and 725 bicyclists were killed, accounting
for 13 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States. An
additional 68,000 pedestrians and 41,000 bicyclists were reported
to be injured as a result of collisions with motor vehicles. The Pedestrian & Bicycle
Crash Analysis Tool (PBCAT) is a software product intended
to assist state and local pedestrian and bicycle coordinators, planners,
and engineers in addressing pedestrian and bicyclist crash problems.
PBCAT accomplishes
this goal through the development and analysis of a database containing
details associated with crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians
or bicyclists. One of these details is the crash
type, which describes the pre-crash actions of the parties involved.
With the database developed, the software can then be used to
produce reports and select countermeasures to address the problems
identified.
Why Crash Typing
The development of effective countermeasures to help prevent
bicyclist and pedestrian crashes is hindered by insufficient
detail on computerized state crash files. Analysis of these data can
provide information on where pedestrian and bicyclist crashes occur
(city, street, intersection, two-lane road, etc.), when they occur
(time of day, day of week, etc.), and characteristics of the victims
involved (age, gender, injury severity, etc.). These data cannot provide
a sufficient level of detail regarding the sequence of events leading
to the crash.
In the 1970s, methods for typing pedestrian
and bicycle crashes were developed by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration to better define the sequence of events
and precipitating actions leading to bicycle- and pedestrian-motor
vehicle crashes. In the 1990s, the methodologies were applied
to over 8,000 pedestrian and bicycle crashes from six States. The
results provided a representative summary of the distribution of
crash types experienced by pedestrians and bicyclists. This
method has evolved over time and was refined during development version
1.0 of PBCAT.
PBCAT MENU what
is it | version 2.0 enhancements |