The perfect mismatch: Analysis of rear-end crash causation mechanisms based on naturalistic crash data

Paper in proceeding, 2017

The present analysis aimed to replicate the analysis of Victor et al. (2015), who investigated how off-road glances cause rear-end crashes and near-crashes. The key finding in Victor et al. (2015) was that many rear-end crashes occur due to a “perfect mismatch” between the timing of the last glance before the crash/near crash and the change in kinematics resulting from the lead vehicle braking. The present analysis, based on a set of event-triggered naturalistic crashes and near crashes obtained from commercial on-board safety monitoring devices, largely corroborated the previous findings and, additionally, developed a new metric that offered some further insight into the perfect mismatch mechanism.