Factors influencing accident severity on suburban roads in Isfahan Province, Iran: a logistic regression analysis of traffic police data

Abstract

Abstract Iran experiences notably high rates of road crashes, particularly on suburban roads. This study analysed 27,729 crash records from the Isfahan Province Traffic Police, collected between 2018 and 2020, to identify factors influencing crash severity and distinguish between fatal and non-fatal incidents. Using Chi-square tests and logistic regression in SPSS 27, the findings indicate that 6.1% of the analysed crashes (1,692 incidents) were fatal. Driver inattention was the predominant cause of these crashes, accounting for 54.2% of cases. Factors that exacerbated crash severity included night-time conditions (OR = 1.22), passenger vehicles (OR = 1.34), motorcycles (OR = 1.68), rainy weather (OR = 1.75), and incidents occurring on Wednesdays (OR = 1.22). Conversely, elements that were found to mitigate severity included older drivers (OR = 0.99), heavy vehicles (OR = 0.78), buses (OR = 0.35), cloudy weather (OR = 0.66), and occurrences during spring and autumn (OR = 0.84 and 0.80, respectively). These findings suggest that implementing enhanced driver training programs and weather-specific safety measures could significantly reduce the severity of road crashes in Iran.