Analysis of young drivers’ safety in Jordan using the Quasi-Induced Exposure Method

This research describes one of the first attempts to study the relative propensity of young drivers in Jordan to cause a traffic crash under different circumstances including driver’s age, gender, number of vehicles involved, location, severity of crash, environmental conditions and time of crash. The Quasi Induced Exposure Method was used with police report crashes between 2010 and 2014 for young drivers of age ≤ 26. The Relative Crash Involvement Ratio disaggregated into specific groups of the driver population was calculated only for single and two vehicle crashes. The substitution method was used for estimating the two vehicle RCIR confidence interval while the normal approximation technique was used for estimating the single vehicle RCIR confidence interval. The results showed that for both single and two vehicles crashes, young male drivers of age ≤ 18 years old are 98-120% more likely to get involved in a crash than female drivers of the same age group, young drivers are up to 28% more likely to cause a single vehicle crash and up to 112% more likely to cause a two vehicle crash during weekdays than weekends, young drivers of age ≤ 18 are more likely to get involved in a traffic crash during winter and summer seasons, young drivers are 73% and 78% more likely to get involved in a single vehicle crash on local roads than on collector and arterials roads respectively, also they are 65% and 72% more likely to get involved in a two vehicle crash on local roads than on collector and arterials roads respectively, younger drivers of age ≤ 18 are four times more likely to get involved in a single vehicle crash than other young drivers age groups, young drivers involved in a single vehicle crash are four to six times more likely to get exposed to major injury than fatality or minor injury, while young drivers involved in a two vehicle crashes are as twice as likely to get involved in a fatal crash than injury crash. Also it was found that young drivers crash risk increase under poor environmental conditions. Finally, the problem of young drivers’ safety was mainly related to young drivers’ lack of experience, countermeasures to improve young drivers’ driving skills were proposed.