- Author
-
Tessmer, J.
- Title
- Analysis of Fires in Passenger Cars, Light Trucks, and Vans.
- Coporate
- National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Washington, DC
- Sponsor
- National Highway Traffic Safety Admin., Washington, DC
- Report
-
DOT-HS-808-208; NHTSA Technical Report,
December 1994,
108 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900. Website: http://www.ntis.gov
- Keywords
-
automobiles
|
trucks
|
automobile accidents
|
fuel systems
|
accident statistics
|
accident investigations
- Identifiers
- fire occurrence; fuel leaks; Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS); National Accident Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS CDS); Most Harmful Event (MHE)
- Abstract
- The objective of this study was to analyze fire occurrence in fatal and less serious crashes, as a function of crash, vehicle and driver characteristics levels that influence the likelihood of postcollision vehicle fires. This analysis provides information to address potential changes to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 301, Fuel System Integrity, to increase the effectiveness of that standard in preventing postcollision vehicle fires. The current Standard 301 became effective in 1978 and applied to passenger cars, light trucks and vans. To prevent vehicles not meeting this standard from corrupting the data, all vehicles analyzed in this report have a model year of 1978 or later. As a result of this restriction, the data does not include a crashes, in which a fire occurred. This study consists of four sections, which complement each other. The first two sections use data from the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS). FARS consists of a census of all fatal crashes and is therefore not a representative sample and contains crashes that are of the highest severity. The first section contains raw cross tabulations of data for 1978 and later model year vehicles. This section of univariate and bivariate analysis, examines the effects of the data variables one or two at a time. The second section of the study also uses the FARS data to construct multivariate statistical models which simultaneously adjust for the effects of the included variables. Section three examines raw cross tabulations of data from the State of Michigan. The Michigan police accident report (PAR) collects data on fuel leaks, which are used to estimate the relationship between fires and fuel leaks. The Michigan data from 1982 to 1991 were used in this study. Section four is based on the National Accident Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS CDS) for burn injuries from l?SS to 1993.