Motor vehicle crashes on bridges and countermeasure opportunities

There are approximately 600,000 highway bridges in the United States. These structures differ from surface streets and highways in terms of their phys ical properties and operational characteristics, which in turn, affect the risk of motor-vehicle crashes and the kinds of crashes that occur. The purp ose of this study was to identify motor-vehicle crash patterns and contribu ting factors to bridge crashes and related countermeasure opportunities on four urban bridges in the New York metropolitan area. A crash typology was developed using the narratives and diagrams in police crash reports in addi tion to standard police classifications of crashes. The final dataset conta ined records of 1,381 police-reported crashes. The four bridges studied had higher crash rates than their respective approach roads. Four major crash types accounted for approximately 90% of the bridge crashes. Primary collis ion factors are reviewed, and potential countermeasures are discussed. (C) 2000 National Safety Council and Elsevier Science Ltd.