Assessment of Traffic Accident at Baghdad Urban Area

Abstract

Road safety is a priority concern and it is one of the major issues in the planning for intelligent transportation system. Traffic fatalities in Iraq can be considered as the major cause of death rather than the terrorist operations for the last few years according to Central Statistical Organization of the Ministry of Interior. In this investigation, the data of Central Statistical Organization related to traffic accidents for the years 2011 to 2016 for all of Iraq provinces have been collected and reviewed. such data includes the number of accidents, number of deaths, number of injuries, nature of accident, time of accident, type of the road, type of vehicle, age group of drivers, gender of drivers, and finally the cause of the accident. It was noticed that the main reason of the accident occurrence is the driver. This work shades light on the driver characteristics and behavior to study the driver's characteristics and behaviors in Baghdad. A questionnaire was designed to tap the following information: driver education, experience, exposure (kilometer driven and time) and accident experience. The study sample included three hundred individuals of both genders aged 18-65 years. They were selected to include diversity in the sample about their educational levels and traditional clothing regarding wearing of the head cover. Also, the sample consists of individuals who use or not use spectacles while driving.  The respondents were subjected to the field of vision test and perception-reaction time test. It has been deduced that current licensing procedures are not enough to approve the right to drive and issue a license. Most of young drivers do not have enough traffic culture as they don’t distinguish most of traffic signage. It was concluded that the visual field is affected negatively by using head cover and spectacles where the peripheral vision angle and clear vision angle declined.