Accepted Manuscript

Title: Risk factors associated with traffic violations and

accident severity in China

Author: Guangnan Zhang Kelvin K.W. Yau Guanghan Chen

PII: S0001-4575(13)00194-2
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.aap.2013.05.004
Reference: AAP 3151

To appear in: Accident Analysis and Prevention

Received date: 21-8-2012

Revised date: 18-1-2013
Accepted date: 8-5-2013

Please cite this article as: Zhang, G., Yau, K.K.W., Chen, G., Risk factors associated
with traffic violations and accident severity in China, Accident Analysis and Prevention
(2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2013.05.004

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Highlights.docx

Highlights

 We analyze the traffic accident data in China.

 We focus on two outcome measures: traffic violations and accident severity.
 Human, vehicle, road and environmental risk factors are considered.
 The results establish the role of traffic violations as one of the major risks threatening road safety.
 Specific risk factors associated with traffic violations and accident severity are determined.

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AAP Zhang Yau Chen 2012_R1.doc

Risk factors associated with traffic violations and accident severity in China
Guangnan Zhanga, Kelvin K.W. Yaub,, Guanghan Chena
a
Center for Studies of Hong Kong, Macao and Pearl River Delta, Sun Yat-Sen University, Xingang Xi
Road, Guangzhou, China
b
Department of Management Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon,
Hong Kong

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Abstract

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With the recent economic boom in China, vehicle volume and the number of traffic accident fatalities

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have become the highest in the world. Meanwhile, traffic accidents have become the leading cause of
death in China. Systematically analyzing road safety data from different perspectives and applying
empirical methods / implementing proper measures to reduce the fatality rate will be an urgent and

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challenging task for China in the coming years. In this study, we analyze the traffic accident data for
the period 2006-2010 in Guangdong Province, China. These data, extracted from the Traffic
Management Sector-Specific Incident Case Data Report, are the only officially available and reliable
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source of traffic accident data (with a sample size > 7,000 per year). In particular, we focus on two
outcome measures: traffic violations and accident severity. Human, vehicle, road and environmental
risk factors are considered. First, the results establish the role of traffic violations as one of the major
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risks threatening road safety. An immediate implication is: if the traffic violation rate could be reduced
or controlled successfully, then the rate of serious injuries and fatalities would be reduced accordingly.
Second, specific risk factors associated with traffic violations and accident severity are determined.
Accordingly, to reduce traffic accident incidence and fatality rates, measures such as traffic regulations
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and legislation—targeting different vehicle types / driver groups with respect to the various human,
vehicle and environment risk factors—are needed. Such measures could include road safety programs
for targeted driver groups, focused enforcement of traffic regulations and road / transport facility
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improvements. Data analysis results arising from this study will shed lights on the development of
similar (adjusted) measures to reduce traffic violations and / or accident fatalities and injuries, and to
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promote road safety in other regions.

1. Introduction
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Deaths due to road traffic accidents have become one of the top three causes of death for populations
aged 5 to 44 years, and the direct economic loss has accounted for approximately 1 to 3% of China‘s
annual gross domestic product (GDP) (WHO, 2009). In China, given the surging economy, vehicle
volume and the number of traffic accident fatalities have become the highest in the world. In 2010,
road traffic accidents resulted in 65,225 deaths and over 900 million RMB (equivalent to USD 143
million, exchange rate: 1 USD=6.3 RMB) in direct property losses (Traffic Management Research
Institute, Ministry of Public Security, China, 2011 Road Accidents White Paper, 2011). Traffic
accidents as a cause of death are now the leading ‗killer‘ in China (Liu Jun, Traffic accidents have
become the No. 1 ‗killer‘, People's Daily 2010-8-5). Given these alarming figures, and with the


Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 3442 8585; fax: +852 3442 0189.
E-mail address: mskyau@cityu.edu.hk (K.K.W. Yau), zsuzgn@hotmail.com (Guangnan Zhang).

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launching of the United Nations Road Safety Action for the Decade, the State Council of China
established a goal of decreasing the traffic fatality rate by 36% in the recent ‗12th Five-Year‘ national
strategic plan. With such a severe situation in China‘s road traffic safety, there is an urgent need to
study the risk factors that determine traffic violations and traffic accident severity.

Since Haddon (1968) introduced his famous "Haddon matrix model", in which he considered three
sets of interactive factors, namely human, vehicle and environment, before, during and after a collision,
a large number of studies have shown that some of the most important factors associated with traffic
accident incidence and injuries/fatalities are driving behaviors such as speeding, drunk driving, fatigue

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driving and not using protective devices. Moreover, because driving behaviors are habits that form in

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accordance with living standards and social culture, they naturally are related to personal
characteristics such as the driver‘s gender, age, education level and income. Specifically, Sabey and

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Taylor (1980) suggested that drivers‘ personal characteristics account for 95% of the factors that cause
accidents. Miaou and Lum (1993) further suggested that, among these personal characteristics, the
most important factors are age and gender. Personal characteristics not only relate to traffic accident

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incidence, but they are also associated with traffic violations. For example, Shinar et al. (2001)
demonstrated that seat belt usage is positively correlated with age and education level. Drivers are
more willing to limit their speed as age increases, while such willingness diminishes as drivers‘
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education level and income increase. Fosgerau (2005) found that driving speed is negatively correlated
with drivers‘ age and is positively correlated with drivers‘ income. Male drivers tend to drive faster
than their female counterparts. Drivers with single marital status have an average driving speed that is
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slightly faster than that of married drivers. In addition to the effect of personal characteristics, it has
also been found that as urbanization rates increase, the average driving speed drops. Other studies have
focused on more specific perspectives. Factor et al. (2008) applied a logistic regression procedure to
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analyze Israeli data and concluded that the varied traffic accident risks were due to different social
habits and technological advancements. Social and cultural characteristics are important determining
factors affecting traffic safety no matter which social sector a driver belongs to. They found that in
Israel, Muslims, separated, widowed, male, young, low-skilled workers and low-educated drivers
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tended to have higher accident rates. Yamamura (2008) used panel data from Japan's 46 counties to
assess the impact of social capital, social structure and social norms on drivers‘ driving attitudes. He
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concluded that formal legal restrictions have nearly no impact on dangerous driving behaviors as
mandatory security checks make drivers even less careful. However, informal restrictions can reduce
the occurrence of dangerous driving behaviors.
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In sum, the literature generally concluded that male drivers usually exhibit a higher probability of
committing traffic violations and consequently have a higher risk of being involved in serious/fatal
traffic accidents (Holubowycz et al., 1994; Massie et al., 1995; Zhang et al., 2000; Hayakawa et al.,
2000; Valent et al., 2002; Yau, 2004; Yau et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2008). Median-aged drivers have a
lower probability of becoming involved in serious injury/fatal accidents, in contrast with younger and
older drivers (Cooper, 1990; Holubowycz et al., 1994; Massie et al., 1995; Hayakawa et al., 2000; Hijar
et al., 2000; Norris et al., 2000; Zhang et al., 2000; Derrig et al., 2002; Valent et al., 2002). Furthermore,
Abdel-Aty (2000) applied descriptive statistics, conditional probability and linear regression to analyze
drunk-driving accidents in Florida, USA. It was found that 25-34 year-old drivers exhibited the highest
accident rate. As drivers‘ age decreased, male, white and local residents demonstrated higher rates of
accident occurrence. Hasselberg (2005) investigated the impact of socio-economic status on traffic
accidents for young drivers. Considering the importance of drivers‘ age and gender on traffic accidents,

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Bedard et al. (2002) indicated that the implementation of specific safety measures is necessary.

Research studies have also suggested that road type, street light condition and weather conditions are
important factors that affect the severity of vehicle traffic crashes (Hijar et al., 2000). However,
weather conditions, though they are important, are not a factor that policymakers can control when
attempting to reduce the risk of severe traffic accidents. Nevertheless, an assessment of the impact of
weather conditions on traffic safety is valuable to road infrastructure designers and the motor insurance
companies that set premium rates. Yakovlev and Inden (2010) examined traffic fatalities in 48
American states from 1982 to 2006 and concluded that weather indicators, such as temperature and hail,

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are the most important factors that determine traffic safety.

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Moreover, other factors including time of day and whether the accident occurred on a weekend are
found to be significant in determining accident severity (Massie et al., 1995; Hijar et al., 2000; Valent

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et al., 2002; Lam et al., 2003). For example, out-of-control accidents often occur during the evening
and nighttime (Laapotti and Keskinen, 1998). Traffic accidents are more likely to happen during heavy

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traffic volume (Abdel-Aty and Radwan, 2000). In addition, vehicle type and accident location are
found to be important factors that are significantly associated with accident severity (Al-Ghamdi,
2002).

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A review of statistical methodologies for analyzing crash-injury data can be found in Savolainen et al.
(2011). Characteristics of crash-injury severity data and related issues such as underreporting of crashes,
ordinal nature of injury severity data and within-crash correlation are discussed. Traditional and
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emerging statistical methods to analyze such data, ranging from the common binary outcome models to
advanced hierarchical, mixed and order logit/probit models are also described.

The road traffic accident database adopted in this study covers traffic accidents that occurred
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between 2006 and 2010 in Guangdong Province, China. Located in the Southern part of Mainland
China, the annual GDP growth (>10%) in Guangdong Province was consecutively ranked first in the
country, since the economic reform and opening-up policy in 1978. As at 2010, the Province has a
resident population of over 104 million, being the only province having residents more than 100
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million. Due to Guangdong‘s rapid economic development and consequently the vehicle numbers
growth, traffic accident incidences are the highest among all 31 provinces in China. In 2010, the
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recorded traffic accidents, deaths and injuries were 13.84%, 9.51% and 14.37% (relative to nationwide
total) respectively. Having the accurate and reliable data obtained from the Guangdong Provincial
Security Department, this study aims to determine the specific risk factors associated with (i) traffic
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violations and (ii) traffic accident severity. Corresponding measures such as traffic regulations and
legislation—respectively targeting different vehicle types / driver groups with respect to the various
human, vehicle and environment risk factors—can subsequently be devised. By assessing the impact of
various risk factors on traffic violations and accident severity using Guangdong Province data, results
arising from this study will shed lights on the development of similar (adjusted) measures to reduce
traffic accident fatalities and injuries, and to promote road safety in other provinces.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Data
We analyze the traffic accident data for the period 2006-2010 in Guangdong Province, China. These

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data, obtained from Guangdong Provincial Security Department, are extracted from the Traffic
Management Sector-Specific Incident Case Data Report. They are the only officially available source
of traffic accident data in China. Data were recorded and reported by the traffic police on-scene who
conducted assessments and provided feedback immediately to the headquarters of the Traffic
Management Department. The data contain 7722, 7511, 7459, 7261 and 7387 annual samples for each
year from 2006-2010, respectively. Each sample includes demographic information, injury severity,
vehicle characteristics, road conditions, crash time and environmental conditions.

Recent studies on road safety in China mainly rely on observational or survey data, to assess

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pedestrian safety (Liu et al., 2011; Zhuang and Wu, 2011), helmet and seatbelt wearing usage (Routley

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et al., 2008; Huang et al., 2011; Yu et al., 2011), and drivers‘ attitude and behavior on road safety
(Zhang et al., 2006; Huang et al., 2008). Other studies have adopted regional traffic accident

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management data (Huang et al., 2008; Kong et al., 2010), yet not on a large scale. To the best of our
knowledge, current study is the first of its kind using the most comprehensive and official database
(N=37,340) to conduct traffic accident analysis in China.

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To determine the risk factors associated with traffic violations and injury severity, the dependent
variables are set as follows: a. whether there was any traffic violation - '1' = yes and '0' =no; b. whether

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the accident resulted in a serious injury/fatality - '1' = yes and '0' = no. As the outcome measure is either
0 or 1, a logistic regression model can be used to estimate the effect of the risk factors on the
probability of (i) traffic violation; and (ii) fatal/serious injury in an accident. Although binary logit
model is the most common method to analyze injury-severity outcomes, ordinal discrete outcome
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model is a viable alternative when injury data are of ordinal type (Savolainen et al., 2011). In current
study, for the ease of interpretation of results and the sake of devising corresponding local road safety
programs, injury severity is classified into two groups according to fatal/serious injury or not. The risk
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factors that were considered include the following: human, vehicle, road and environment.

2.2. Risk Factors

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2.2.1. Human factor

Drivers‘ age and gender are considered to be potential risk factors. With reference to the typical
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driving habits in different age groups and level of driving skills (Traffic Management Bureau, Ministry
of Public Security, PRC, China Road Traffic Accidents Annual Statistical Report 2011), driver age is

divided into five groups: ≦25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55, ≧56 and driving experience is categorized into six
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groups: ≦2, 3-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, ≧21 years.

Although drivers‘ education, income and social status are expected to be potential factors that are
associated with traffic violations and accident severity, this information is generally not recorded in the
traffic accident database. Instead, related information indicated by the drivers‘ hukou origin and
occupation are available. Two groups of the hukou household registration system are examined: rural
hukou and urban hukou. Occupations are classified as: military and police, general staff members,
workers, civil servants, the self-employed, farmers, migrant workers, the unemployed and other
occupations.

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2.2.2. Vehicle factor
Three major vehicle types, namely passenger vehicles, goods vehicles and motorcycles, are included
in the data. In addition, indicator variables are generated according to the vehicle‘s safety status,
vehicle‘s overload condition, whether the vehicle had any compulsory third party insurance and
whether the vehicle was a commercial vehicle.

2.2.3. Road factor

Types of traffic lanes can be divided into vehicle lanes, shared-lanes and other lanes in accordance

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with their functional classification. When considering types and grades, roads can be divided into

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expressways, ordinary highways and urban highways. Specifically, ordinary highways include the
first-class highways, second-class highways, third-class highways, fourth-class highways and

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fifth-class highways; urban highways include urban expressways, urban ordinary highways and urban
other highways.

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2.2.4. Environment factor
There are eight environmental factors: street-light condition, weather conditions, visibility level,
whether the accident occurred on a weekend, whether it was a public holiday, time of day, season and
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year of the accident. Street-light condition is classified into daylight, good street lighting at night and
no street lighting at night. Weather condition (good=0, bad=1) and visibility level (good=0, bad=1) are
generated as indicator variables accordingly. Weekends are defined as: 17:00 Friday to 23:59 Sunday,
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as it is anticipated that the occurrence of Friday traffic accidents after 17:00 is similar to those
occurring on Saturday and Sunday (MacLeod, 2011). Public holidays refer to the holidays stipulated by
the State Council of China (before 2007 public holidays in China included New Year, Chinese New
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Year, International Labor Day and National Day. From 2008 onwards, three holidays were added
following the holiday reform in 2007; they are Qing Ming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and
Mid-Autumn Festival.). Time has been classified into six groups according to working time pattern and
peoples‘ lifestyle in China: 00:00-06:59 (midnight to dawn), 07:00-08:59 (morning rush hours),
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09:00-11:59 (morning working hours), 12:00-16:59 (afternoon working hours), 17:00-19:59 (afternoon
rushing hours), and 20:00-23:59 (nighttime). Seasons are defined, according to the Bureau of
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Meteorology Category, China, as spring (March to May), summer (June to September), autumn
(October to November) and winter (December to February).
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2.3. Statistical data analysis

Contingency tables are constructed to assess the association between risk factors and (i) traffic
violation and (ii) injury severity. Chi-square tests of independence are conducted with the level of
significance at 5%.

To estimate the effect of different predictor variables on the likelihood of the occurrence of (i) traffic
violation and (ii) injury severity, logistic regression analyses are conducted. We consider the use of
multivariate stepwise logistic regression to identify significant factors determining (i) traffic violation
and (ii) injury severity and to estimate the magnitude of adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for each significant
factor while controlling for other confounding factors (Hosmer and Lemeshow, 1989). The adjusted
ORs of significant factors and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are computed using a stepwise
logistic regression model in which all factors were initially included, and insignificant factors are

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subsequently removed by the stepwise procedure. Entry and removal probabilities for the stepwise
procedure are both set at 0.05.

3. Empirical results
Table 1 displays the chi-square statistics for assessing the dependence between the predictor
variables and (i) traffic violations and (ii) fatal/serious injury. To further assess the casual relationship,
via the stepwise logistic regression analysis, adjusted odds ratios and the corresponding 95% CIs for
each of the significant factors are displayed in Table 2.

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Before going into the detailed data analysis results, preliminary findings point to an important

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conclusion. Overall, among all traffic accidents (N=37,340) recorded, 74.34% of those involved traffic
violations. Separating the data according to whether traffic violation is involved (N=27,759) or not

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(N=9,581), it is found that the fatal/serious injury proportion occurring with traffic violations (41.38%)
is significantly higher than (p-value < 0.001) the proportion of fatal/serious injuries occurring in the
absence of traffic violations (35.16%). The immediate implication is that: traffic violations associate

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positively with accident severity. Thus, for fixed traffic accident number, increased traffic violation
events will imply more severe traffic accident events. In this context, it is even more alarming to note
that the traffic violation proportion in on an increasing trend (‗2006‘=70.15%, ‗2007‘=71.84%,
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‗2008‘=73.52%, ‗2009‘=77.76%, ‗2010‘=78.73%). Traffic violation events are becoming the major
latent threat to road safety in China. If the traffic violation rate can be reduced or controlled
successfully, the number of fatal/serious injury victims would be reduced accordingly.
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3.1. Risk factors affecting traffic violations
As displayed in the second column of Table 1, many factors are significantly related to traffic
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violations. Among all personal characteristics, a driver‘s gender is one of the most important factors.
Benchmarking with the overall traffic violations proportion (74.34%), female drivers‘ traffic violations
proportion (65.98%) is much lower than male drivers‘ (74.83%). Driver‘s age (in years) and driving
experience (in years) also demonstrate certain diversities. Referring to the specific group‘s traffic
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violation proportions, young drivers, novice drivers and experienced drivers tend to have a higher
traffic violation probability. Also, rural hukou drivers are less likely to commit traffic violations than
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urban hukou drivers.

For vehicle factors, vehicle type, vehicle safety status and whether the vehicle was a commercial
vehicle are significantly associated with traffic violations. Specifically, relative to motorcycles
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(66.59%), both goods vehicles (77.56%) and passenger vehicles (77.70%) exhibit a higher proportion
of traffic violations. Moreover, unfit vehicle safety status (87.61%), overload (75.81%) and commercial
vehicle (76.54%) exhibit a higher-than-average traffic violation proportion. Environment and other
factors such as street light condition, weather condition, visibility level and whether it was a weekend
also significantly relate to traffic violations. In particular, no street lighting at night (75.53%), good
weather (75.02%), bad visibility (77.39%) and weekends (75.17%) are found to exhibit a higher traffic
violation proportion.

Applying stepwise logistic regression analysis, factors having a significantly higher likelihood of
traffic violations are identified. Detailed results can be found in the second column of Table 2. Results
generally are consistent with above findings using chi-square test and reviewing the corresponding
group-specific traffic violation proportions. Some highlights are as follows. Male drivers and drivers

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with less than 6 years of driving experience tend to have a higher risk of traffic violations. Rural hukou
drivers have a lower risk of traffic violations. Goods vehicles and passenger vehicle drivers, compared
to motorcycle drivers, exhibit a higher risk of traffic violation. Unfit safety status and overload are also
found to be significant factors relating to traffic violations. For environmental factors, street light
condition, weather condition, visibility level, whether it was a weekend, time of day and the year of the
accident are identified as significant factors associated with traffic violations. Specifically, no street
lighting, bad visibility, weekends and the hours 7:00-8:59 and 17:00-19:59 present a higher risk of
traffic violation.

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Factors including the driver‘s age, whether the vehicle had compulsory third party insurance,

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whether the vehicle was a commercial vehicle, whether it was a public holiday and the season are
found to be not significant in the stepwise logistic regression analysis when other confounding factors

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are being controlled.

3.2. Risk factors affecting injury severity

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Further analysis has also been conducted to identify the impact of the risk factors on accident
severity, conditional on the presence or absence of a traffic violation. The last two columns in Table 1
display the chi-square statistics for assessing the dependence between the predictor variables and
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accident severity by traffic violation and non-traffic violation groups respectively. Referring to the
traffic violation group data (N=27,759), the overall proportion of severe (fatal/serious injury) accidents
of 41.38% serves as a base for comparison. Among all factors relating to the driver, gender difference
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is clearly seen. In particular, female drivers involving in severe accident proportion is 25.78%, which is
much lower than the male drivers group (42.18%). Higher severe accident proportion for rural hukou
offenders (51.12%) is also evident. For vehicle factors, goods vehicles (52.48%), unfit safety status
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(59.63%), overload (58.65%), no compulsory third party insurance (46.24%) and non-commercial
vehicles (52.90%) demonstrate a higher proportion of severe accidents. For environmental factors, no
street lighting at night (57.72%), bad visibility (48.42%), weekends (43.10%) and public holidays
(45.22%) have a higher proportion of severe accidents. Weather conditions, however, are found to be
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not significantly associated with accident severity.

Applying stepwise logistic regression analysis, in the third column of Table 2, the results broadly
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agree with above findings using chi-square test and reviewing the corresponding group-specific severe
accident proportions. Referring to the odds ratios and 95% CI in Table 2 (third column), male traffic
offenders are more likely to be involved in fatal/serious accidents. Regarding driving experience,
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novice drivers (≦ 2 years of driving experience) exhibit a lower risk of being involved in severe

accidents. Relative to urban hukou traffic offenders, rural hukou offenders have an increased likelihood
of being involved in fatal/serious injury accidents. For vehicle factors, goods vehicles drivers who
violated traffic regulations have a higher risk of severe injury/fatal accidents compared to motorcycle
drivers. Unfit safety status, overload and commercial vehicles demonstrate an increased risk of severe
accidents. Compulsory third party insurance is not found to be a significant factor. For environmental
factors, no street lighting at night has the highest risk of leading to a severe accident. Good street
lighting at night exhibits median risk, while daylight presents the lowest risk. Bad visibility, weekends
and public holidays demonstrate a significantly higher risk of severe accidents. Moreover, midnight to
dawn (00:00-6:59) is found to have a higher risk of fatal/serious injury accidents, compared to

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9:00-16:00. However, accidents happening during evening rush hour 17:00-19:59 have a decreased risk
of accident severity. The autumn season, compared with spring and summer, presents an increased risk
of fatal/serious injury accidents. In addition, it is worth emphasizing that, among all traffic violations,
speeding, drunk driving and illegal meeting all have a significantly higher risk of leading to
fatal/serious injury accidents. Driver‘s age, weather condition and the year are not found to be
significant factors associated with accident injury severity when other factors are controlled in the
stepwise logistic regression procedure.

In addition, risk factors determining injury severity are also studied for accidents not involving

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traffic violations. The last column in Table 3 shows that the risk factors that impact injury severity

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differ when traffic regulations are not violated. Interestingly, whether or not a traffic violation occurs
makes a difference in terms of the significant risk factors determining accident severity and their

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corresponding effects on fatal/serious injury accident occurrence. For example, in cases where traffic
violations are not present, 6-10 years of driving experience and 11-15 years of driving experience are

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more significantly associated with injury severity, while novice driver status (≦ 2 years of driving

experience) exhibits an insignificant association; passenger vehicles become a significant factor for
injury severity, while goods vehicles are an insignificant factor. Moreover, some factors that have
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previously been identified as significant factors, including compulsory third party insurance, weekends,
public holidays, the midnight to dawn hours and the spring season, are found to be not significantly
associated with injury severity. Such findings have important implications for organizing road safety
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promotion activities for targeted road user groups as well as establishing relevant regulations and
policies to reduce traffic accident severity at a macro level.

4. Discussion
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The results indicate that some risk factors are found to be significant in the logistic regression
analysis for both traffic violations and injury severity. As a summary, males, goods vehicles, an unfit
safety status, overload, no street lighting at night, bad visibility and weekends not only exhibit an
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increased likelihood of being associated with a traffic violations, but they also imply a higher risk of
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accident severity. Novice drivers (≦ 2 years of driving experience) display a significantly higher risk of

traffic violations, yet their risk on accident severity is significantly lower than the other categories of
drivers. Drivers with 3-5 years of driving experience, passenger vehicles, bad weather and the morning
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rush hour (7:00-8:59) display an increased risk of traffic violations, while their association with a
fatal/severe injury is not significant. Furthermore, since 2007, traffic violation rates increased
significantly; in fact, an increasing trend was observed, while the fatal/serious injury accident rate
remained rather stable. Commercial vehicles, good street lighting at night, public holidays and
mid-night to dawn (00:00-06:59) do not have a significant effect on traffic violations, but when traffic
violations do occur, these factors confer a higher risk of a fatal/serious injury. Nevertheless,
compulsory third party insurance and the spring and winter seasons do not demonstrate significant
impacts on injury severity.

4.1. Human Factor

Concurring to the findings in the literature, male drivers are clearly demonstrating a significantly
higher risk of traffic violations as well as accident severity (Holubowycz et al., 1994; Massie et al.,

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1995; Hayakawa et al., 2000; Zhang et al., 2000; Valent et al., 2002; Yau, 2004; Yau et al., 2006; Kim
et al., 2008). Education level, income and social status have been shown to be factors associating with
road safety (Hasselberg et al., 2005; Factor et al., 2008). However, information on these factors are not
available in our data, such effect may partly be transmitted to the hukou and occupation variables.
Effect of drivers‘ characteristic on traffic accident severity is also verified (Sabey and Taylor, 1980).
Most research studies have identified the effect of age on various aspects of traffic accident event and
road safety (Cooper, 1990, Holubowycz et al., 1994; Massie et al., 1995; Abdel-Aty, 2000; Hayakawa
et al., 2000; Hijar et al., 2000; Norris et al., 2000; Zhang et al., 2000; Bebard et al., 2002; Derrig et al.,
2002; Valent et al., 2002; Fosgerau, 2005; Factor et al., 2008; Zhuang and Wu, 2011). In our study, the

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effect of drivers‘ age is not found to be significant on both traffic violations and accident severity.

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Instead, its impact is shifted to the closely related driving experience variable in the stepwise logistic
regression analysis, which may illuminate why Chinese drivers concentrate more on driving skills and

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capabilities (Zhang et al. 2006).

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4.2. Vehicle and Environment Factors
It should be noted that goods vehicles exhibit significantly higher risk of both traffic violations and
accident severity. In fact, this finding supports the importance of vehicle type variable on traffic
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violations in the literature (Hijar et al. 2000; Al-Ghamdi, 2002). Tightened vehicle safety and overload
condition checking, particularly for goods vehicles, is also crucial in reducing both traffic violations
and accident severity rates. Consistent with the major findings in the literature, accidents occurring
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during weekend also deserve particular attention (Massie et al. 1995; Hijar et al., 2000; Valent et al.,
2002; Lam et al., 2003). Effect of time and season on traffic accidents appear to be region-specific. In
some studies, traffic accidents mostly occur at night time (Laapotti and Keskinen, 1998) or during rush
hours (Abdel-Aty and Radwan, 2000). Another study finds that the occurrence of traffic accidents is
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quite evenly distributed over time of day, day of the week and season (Wang et al. 2008). Our data
reveal that morning rush hours (07:00-08:59) only increases the likelihood of traffic violations but has
no significant effect on accident severity, while mid-night to dawn (00:00-0659) increases the risk of
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fatal/severe injury accidents. Weather conditions, such as temperature and hail indicators, are found to
be important factors determining road accident fatality in the United States (Yakovlev and Inden, 2010).
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Current study shows that bad weather reduces the risk of traffic violations and has no significant effect
on accident severity. On the other hand, bad visibility exerts pressure on the risk on both traffic
violations and accident severity.
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4.3. Improving Road Safety

Traffic accidents are mostly regarded as unexpected, unfortunate events occurring at random.
However, scientific analysis of accident data and the implementation of relevant safety measures could
prevent traffic accident occurrence and reduce injury severity (WHO, 2004). Current research has
established that traffic violations in China are one of the major threats to road safety. It is even more
alarming to note that the traffic violation proportion in on an increasing trend. The important
implication is: if the traffic violation rate could be reduced or controlled successfully, then the rate of
serious injuries and fatalities would be reduced accordingly. Thus, given the current road traffic
accident incidence and fatality rates in China, traffic regulations and laws should be enacted that target
different vehicle types / driver groups and consider the various human, vehicle and environment risk
factors. For example, male drivers and drivers with certain occupation categories (such as farmers,

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general staff members, the self-employed, migrant workers and other occupations) are considered to
have a higher risk of being involved in traffic violations and fatal/serious injury accidents. Therefore,
traffic safety propaganda and targeted follow-up management should be strengthened. Goods vehicles
that are found with unfit safety and overload status should face more serious legal consequences. As no
street lighting at night and bad visibility are significantly associated with traffic violations and injury
severity, the improvement of transport facilities would have a clear benefit to road safety. Additional
measures to reduce accident incidence and injury severity during weekends are also needed.

Moreover, traffic safety depends on road design, road layout, vehicle performance, traffic regulations

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and their implementation effectiveness. However, traffic safety management measures in developed

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countries may not be entirely applicable to developing countries because in low-income countries the
transport modes primarily include walking, bicycling, riding motorcycles and taking buses, whereas the

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major road users in developed countries are motor vehicle owners. Therefore, road usage patterns that
are suitable for mixed traffic and local conditions need to be introduced and improved, and the
effectiveness of these methods in other developing countries should also be comprehensively studied.

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As a country with the highest number of traffic accident fatalities in the world, systematically analyzing
road safety data from different perspectives and applying empirical methods / implement proper
measures to reduce the fatality rate will be urgent and challenging tasks for China in the coming years.

4.4. Limitations and Future Research

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As data are extracted from the Traffic Management Sector-Specific Incident Case Data Report from
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the Guangdong Provincial Security Department, which is the only official source of cross-sectional
traffic accident data available in the Province, data quality can be assured. However, data are of the
crash-injury severity type, it inherits the general problem of under-reporting minor injury and property
ed

damage only (PDO) accidents, and hence the possible bias in the parameter estimates due to such
under-reporting might exist. Furthermore, issues such as omitted variable bias, endogeneity and
within-crash correlation should be aware of when looking into the results (Savolainen et al., 2011).
pt

Traffic accident data from the Guangdong Province are adopted in current study. Given that there are
similarities in drivers‘ driving attitude and habits across different Provinces in China, Guangdong
Province‘s experience, to an extent, can be considered as representative and typical, such as the effects
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of gender, driving experience, hukou, overload, safety status and insurance on traffic violations and
accident severity. Generalization of the research findings to other regions is not totally direct, but
requires some filtering and minor modifications. In order to have a comprehensive and comparative
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review on traffic accidents among other Provinces in China, efforts are being made to collect the
nationwide traffic accidents data. Second, in current study, traffic violations type has not be separated
for further analysis. For example, speeding, drunk driving or fatigue driving each has its own
significant risk factors. Future research work will look into type-specific traffic violations events and
assess their corresponding risk factors. Third, for some accidents, the occurrence of the event may
relate to the passenger or some unexpected road incidences, but not the driver, our models are not able
to take them into account as such information are not recorded in the Traffic Management Incident
Case Data Report. Forth, our database does not include seatbelt/helmet wearing and mobile phone
usage information, though these factors are deemed important, their effects cannot be assessed. Last,
the response variable for accident severity is binary, with either fatal/severe injury or not. However,
some multiple vehicle accidents involving many fatalities should be considered as ―super‖ severe

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events, the associated risk factors might be rather unique and in such case an ordinal regression model
is needed. In our current data format, these events cannot be distinguished.

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to an Associate Editor and two reviewers for very helpful comments on
earlier version of the paper. This research was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China grant 71173244.

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Table 1
Independence test and measure of association for traffic violations and accident severity in China
Factors Traffic violations Severe injury/fatality Severe injury/fatality
(traffic violations (non-traffic
group) violations group)
(N=37340) (N=27759) (N=9581)

2 (P-value), 2 (P-value), 2 (P-value),

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degree of freedom degree of freedom degree of freedom

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Human factors
Driver‘s gender 79.287*(<0.001),1 142.362*(<0.001),1 80.350*(<0.001),1

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Driver‘s age 23.163* (<0.001), 4 7.811 (0.099),4 7.301(0.121),4
Driver‘s driving experience 18.999* (0.002), 5 38.928*(<0.001),5 23.412*(<0.001),5
Driver‘s hukou origin 10.481* (0.001), 1 350.314*(<0.001),1 131.333*(<0.001),1

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Driver‘s occupation 123.370*(<0.001),8 266.85*(<0.001),8 89.228*(<0.001),8

Vehicle factors
Vehicle type
Vehicle safety status
Vehicle overload condition
497.959*(<0.001),2
228.656*(<0.001),1
3.151 (0.076),1
an
644.248*(<0.001),2
301.659*(<0.001),1
260.959*(<0.001),1
224.911*(<0.001),2
18.939*(<0.001),1
139.716*(<0.001),1
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Whether the vehicle had
any compulsory third 0.060(0.807),1 36.542*(<0.001),1 0.123(0.726),1
party insurance
Whether the vehicle was a
ed

41.403* (<0.001),1 693.446*(<0.001),1 267.816*(<0.001),1

commercial vehicle

Road factors
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Types of traffic lanes 136.353*(<0.001),1 8.309*( 0.004),1 13.724*(<0.001),1

Road type 378.502*(<0.001),8 1300*(<0.001),8 532.426*(<0.001),8
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Environmental factors
Street-light condition 6.093* (0.048),2 577.599*(<0.001),2 311.027*(<0.001),2
Weather condition 30.705* (<0.001),1 0.329(0.566),1 5.265*(0.022),1
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Visibility level 19.42* (<0.001),1 63.118*(<0.001),1 5.127*(0.024),1

Whether it was a weekend 6.13* (0.013),1 15.973*(<0.001),1 0.043(0.835),1
Whether it was a public
2.497(0.114),1 13.429*(<0.001),1 0.314(0.575),1
holiday
Time 4.820(0.306),5 116.186*(<0.001),5 51.059*(<0.001),5
Seasons 7.913*(0.048),3 37.248*(<0.001),3 16.535*(0.001),3
Years 217.465*(<0.001),4 18.896*(0.001),4 8.002 (0.092),4

Traffic violation 1300.000*(<0.001),5 343.741*(<0.001),5 75.721*(<0.001),5

*Significant at 5% level.

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Table 2
Adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) in stepwise logistic regression analysis of risk factors
associating with traffic violations and accident severity in China
Factors* Traffic Violations Serious Serious
Injury/Fatality Injury/Fatality
(traffic violations (non-traffic
group) violations group)

Driver‘s gender (base: female)

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Male

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1.332(1.206,1.470) 1.382(1.213,1.574) 1.653(1.353,2.019)

Driver‘s age (base: ≧56)

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- - -
≦25

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26-35 - - -

36-45 - - -

46-55

Driver‘s driving experience (base:

- an - -
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≧21)
1.207(1.130,1.289) 0.911(0.852,0.973) -
≦2
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1.105(1.039,1.175) - -
3-5
- - 1.154(1.038,1.283)
6-10
- - 1.146(1.022,1.285)
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11-15
- - -
16-20
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Driver‘s hukou origin (base: urban

hukou)
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Rural hukou 0.795(0.749,0.844) 1.345(1.264,1.432) 1.496(1.350,1.657)

Vehicle type (base: motor cycles)

Passenger vehicles 1.992(1.877,2.114) - 0.808(0.733,0.891)

Goods vehicles 2.023(1.895,2.160) 1.371(1.284,1.464) -

Vehicle safety status (base: fit safety

statue)

Unfit safety statue 2.586(2.274,2.940) 1.774(1.609,1.956) 1.443(1.124,1.851)

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Vehicle overload condition (base: not

overload) 1.248(1.128,1.380) 1.289(1.164,1.427) 1.472(1.228,1.765)

Overload

Whether the vehicle had any -

compulsory third party insurance

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(base: no)

Yes - 0.774(0.715,0.837)

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Whether the vehicle was a

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commercial vehicle (base: no)

Yes - 1.347(1.260,1.440) 1.480(1.334,1.641)

Street-light condition (base: daylight)

Good street-lighting -
an 1.173(1.096,1.255) 1.212(1.085,1.354)

No street-lighting 1.197(1.110,1.291) 1.536(1.414,1.667) 1.806(1.581,2.063)

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Weather condition (base: good)

Bad weather 0.850(0.803,0.899) - -

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Visibility level (base: good)

Bad visibility 1.097(1.006,1.196) 1.130(1.036,1.233) -

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Whether it was a weekend (base: no)

Yes 1.065(1.011,1.122) 1.107(1.048,1.169) -

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Whether it was a public holiday (base:

no)
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Yes - 1.155(1.049,1.272) -

Time (base: 9:00-11:59)

00:00-6:59 - 1.299(1.200,1.406) -

07:00-8:59 1.186(1.087,1.295) - -

12:00-16:59 - - -

17:00-19:59 1.108(1.035,1.186) 0.816(0.757,0.879) 0.852(0.748,0.971)

20:00-23:59 - - -

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Seasons (base: autumn)

Spring - 0.882(0.828,0.940) -

Summer - 0.827(0.779,0.877) 0.849(0.773,0.933)

Winter - - -

Years (base: 2006)

2007 - - -

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2008 1.111(1.042,1.184) - -

2009 1.359(1.270,1.453) - -

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2010 1.471(1.375,1.575) - -

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Traffic violations (base: other traffic

violations behaviors)

Speeding

Drunk-driving
NA

NA
an 1.598(1.422,1.795)

1.232(1.009,1.505)
NA

NA

Illegal meeting NA 1.255(1.110,1.419) NA

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Not giving way according to NA 0.932(0.869,0.999) NA

stipulations
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Model prediction measures

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Percent correct 74.37 65.12 68.01

ROC 0.644 0.687 0.688

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N 37340 27759 9581

*For brevity, results for drivers‘ occupation and road factors are omitted.
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