Fatality Rates

1. Evaluation of Police Crash Form in GCC Countries Using the Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC) • Dr. Jamal Almatawah

2. Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries consist of six countries namely Saudi Arabia, Oman, Emirate, Kuwait Qatar, and Bahrain

3. Fatality Rates

4. Fatalities per 100,000 inhabitant in the GCC countries

5. Accident rate at GCC • Statistics show that the fatality rate per 100,000 population in the GCC countries are substantially higher than those in developed countries • The fatality rate for the GCC country showed a much higher rate (around 23 deaths per 100,000population) than developed countries such as UK and Sweden where the fatality rate per 100,000 population are 2.9 and 2.8 respectively

6. Topographic Features in GCC Topography in each country could have an impact on fatality rates. For example, the total land areas of Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain are relatively small compared to the Emirates and Oman, whereas Saudi Arabia is much greater than all of them. There is some rolling and mountainous terrain in Oman and Saudi Arabia, whilst Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have mostly level terrain (desert landscape).

7. Overview of crash data • Scientific and analytical approaches to crashdata collection, storage and analysis are essential in dealing with road safety problems. • Police traffic accident records in the majority of countries are the main (and sometimes the only) source of crash data. • Access to the crash database is also important to identifying specific safety problems and evaluating the effectiveness of the countermeasure introduced. • Crashdata collection and analysis offered by technological innovation such as Electronic Data Entry (EDE), Electronic Data Transfer (EDT), and Geographic Information system (GIS) are implemented in developed countries. • These technology would minimize invalid or incomplete information being entered into the report compared to filling the crash Form manually.

8. Overview of crash data • Most of the GCC countries proposed road safety strategic plans to reduce crashesand causalities. • One of the key issue of these strategies is to improve the crash database which could promote a more detailed of the causes of road crashes, and better understanding of the circumstances that leading to causalities. • An accurate road crash database is essential to determine the priorities and the results of each measure, and therefore to design any effective strategic plan.

9. Objectives • The objectives of this research are : • Evaluate the crash data forms in GCC countries Using the MMUCC Fourth Edition (2012). • Preform recommendations towards improving the crash data.

10. Police accident report assessment based on Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC Guideline) Fourth Edition (2012)

11. Methodology • Police crash reports have been obtained from traffic departments for each gulf country to evaluate the report form based on the Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC). • MMUCC are employed to evaluate the dataset elements from the police accident formfor gulf countries with taken into consideration the different environment , Intersectiontypes road types, railway system, and the hidden items from the narrative part

12. Police Crash Form in Kuwait

14. Police Accident Report assessment based on Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC) • The purpose of the Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC) is to provide a necessary dataset describing the road traffic accident in order to improve road safety within the United State. • MMUCC recommends that law enforcement should collect 77 of the data elementals at the accident scene, which include 19 crash data elements, 30 vehicle data element and 28 personal data elements, were each elements has several attributes • The state which comply with a minimum set of standardized data element (about 75 %) , will receive fund for crash data improvement from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.(NHTSA) Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria Compliance Workshop Tom Bragan St. Paul, Minnesota October 30, 2013

15. Police Accident Report Assessment 0-3 points possible per element based on attribute matching count 3= Full (100% of MMUCC attributes) 2 = High compliance(≥50% of MMUCC attributes) 1 = Low compliance (<50% of MMUCC attributes) 0 = No compliance (0% of MMUCC attributes) Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria Compliance Workshop Tom Bragan St. Paul, Minnesota October 30, 2013

16. PAR Assessment Totals Crash data elements (C) 19 Vehicle data elements (V) 30 Person data elements (P) 28 Total data elements 77 Total points possible (77*3) 231 • Example: • State 1: MMUCC compliance total of 99/231 points (or 42.9%) • (non-compliance) • State 2: MMUCC compliance total of 195/231 points (84.4%) • (compliance) Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria Compliance Workshop Tom Bragan St. Paul, Minnesota October 30, 2013

17. Assessing Compliance C12. Light Condition Definition: The type/level of light that existed at the time of the motor vehicle crash. Attributes: • Daylight • Dawn • Dusk • Dark-Lighted • Dark-Not Lighted • Dark-Unknown Lighting • Other • Unknown 8 total attributes Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria Compliance Workshop Tom Bragan St. Paul, Minnesota October 30, 2013

18. Results

19. Assessment of crash, vehicle and person data elements for GCC countries based on MMUCC

20. The table shows that all gulf countries do not reach the minimum percentage of compliance required (75%). Bahrain and UAE (Abu Dhabi) has more data elements and attributes in their police crash report among the gulf countries nearly 60 %. • In Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the percentage of compliance were about 40%.

21. An Example Some missing information from the police accident report in Kuwait • Exact crash location • Lighting condition • Roadway surface condition • School bus related • Working zone related • Direction of travel before crash • Roadway Alignment and grade • Towed due to disable damage • Gross vehicle weight • Hazard Materials (Cargo only) • Seated position • Driver action at the time of crash • Driver Distracted By…….etc.

22. Conclusions and Recommendations: • The findings of this study reveal that there is a need to improve the accident reporting system and to build up an accurate and relevant database in order to provide a reliable system for storing, retrieving and analysing data. • Unclear supervision with not well train person for collecting and entering the data is an issue that it should be taken into consideration. • Developing countries, including the GCC countries, should take advantage of the experience of developed countries on how the advance accident data management system works to identifying the main factors contributing to traffic accident

23. Conclusions and Recommendations: • Gulf countries should take advantage of developments in computer technology. Electronic Data Entry (EDE) and Electronic Data transfer (EDT) supporting with proper supervision (edit checks) should be fully introduced to minimize missing and inaccurate data as well as utilizing of the GPS and GIS system to identifying the exact accident location in order to introduce a proper countermeasures • Accident police form should be updated and have more detailed information of the cash data elements, vehicle data elements and personal data elements, in order to identify the most contributory factors of traffic accident and for conducting farther research as this was recommended by MMUCC. • Accident databases should also be accessible to researchers, to encourage the analysis of accidents and the development of a better understanding of road safety characteristics and trends.

24. Thank You for Your Attention

25. Any Question Dr. Jamal Almatawah Public Authorities for Applied Education and Training Kuwait Traffic Safety Society jamaln1@hotmail.com

26. Interview questions: • Q1: Please provide detailed steps of the procedure for providing a:ccident statistics ( from start til database storage). • Q2: Who fills the accident report forms? Is it done digitally or manually? How are the information sent to the Information Center (DMV)? • Q3: After filling down the accident report form, the information is stored as database in the computer: a- manually through some coded forms; b- by scanner; c- through computer software. • Who is in charge of this? • Q4: Is there a supervisor who double-checks the information in the accident reports before they are finalized? • Q6: Who has the authority to access the accident database (for example, Police, Department of Transportation, researchers, the public, …)? • Q7: What are the definitions of the slight injury, the serious injury, the fatal and the Property Damage Only (PDO) accidents that you use? Do you have different classifications for injury accidents? • Q8: Who decides the type of injury in any accident (slight, serious or fatal) (i.e., Is it the police department or the hospital)? In other words: How can you distinguish between the types (i.e., the degrees) of injuries? Do the police and the hospital have the same criteria for identifying the type of injury? Is the hospital database of injury accidents (accident injuries?!) similar to that of the police database? • Q9: What is the percentage of the reports that have missing data information among all the reports? Is the missing information very common in PDO accident reports?

27. The Steps of remedial program • 1- identify the hazardous location i.e. those sites at which potential for accident reduction is high • 2- Diagnosis of accident patterns • 3-site investigations in order to specify the safety problems. • 4-Identification of the features associated with accidents for treating site of the same type. 5-Selection of countermeasures 6- Ranking of sites in priority of treatments. 7- Implementation of the most economically worthwhile countermeasures 8- Evaluation of the effects of the implemented countermeasures

28. Fatalities/100 million vehicle kilometres travelled

29. Data Quality Metrics in Traffic Records • Timeliness • Accuracy • Completeness • Consistency/Uniformity • Integration • Accessibility(NHTSA)

31. The police should give greater priority to liaising with hospitals and thus collect more detailed and accurate information on serious road crash victims, i.e. those who are hospitalised.

32. Accident data process in Gulf countries • It was found that the crash statistic process are different among Gulf countries. • عدة أنظمة في تجميع بيانات حوادث الطرق في دول الخليج • Still insufficient data for accident location, although there some effort has been done on this areas. • توجد مشاكل في تحديد المواقع حوادث الطرق بصورة دقيقة • The GPS and GIS to identify the accident location are partially introduce recently in GCC countries • استخدامات محدودة لنظام ال GISو GPS لتحديد مواقع الحوادث • Academic researchers who were involved in accident database studiesclaimed that there is a missing data from the police report specially for the accident locations. • توجد معلومات مفقودة من تقرير حوادث الطرق بسبب نظام التجميع الحالي • They try their best to track the missing and more accurate data from other authorities such as ministry of health to conduct the research. • صعوبة الحصول على بيانات حوادث الطرق للباحثين • Also they have concerns about the manual process of the data collection which could lead to missing data and the qualification of the people who involved in investigation and entering the data. • هناك تحفظ عل مؤهلات جامعي و مدخلي البيانات, وكذلك الجدية في التحقيق

33. Casualties' accident definitions • The definitions of fatal ,serious injury, slight injury accident are not clear. • مصطلحات حوادث الوفيات والإصابات البليغة والبسيطة غير واضح • Some police officers mentions that the hospital will decide what kind of injury and there is a police investigator representatives in each hospital to follow up the accident • The definition of fatal accident which is the person who killed outright or who dies within 30 days as a result of an accident is on the way to apply in the gulf country. • Bahrain and Saudi Arabia claimed that they employ the definition of a person being hospitalized for at least 24 hours as a serious injury.

34. linkage between police and hospital. • Also the degree of linkage between the hospital and the traffic department are not clear, although Abu Dhabi police claimed that a computerized linkage between the hospital and the traffic department is implemented recently. • الربط والتنسيق بين قاعدة بيانات وزارة الصحة والداخلية غير واضح

35. Police accident report assessment based on Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC) • In this study MMUCC are employed to evaluate the dataset elements from the police accident Report for gulf countries with taken into consideration the different traffic environment, junction and road types and hidden items from the narrative part. Example of differences Weather, Types of Intersection, females are not drive in Saudi Arabia, accident located in privet or public area, railway …….etc

36. A personal interview survey method has been implemented in this study. People who were interviewed are police officers and Academic researchers who are involved in the accident database in each gulf country. The interview questions are mainly about the process of collecting and maintaining accident data system.