The Analysis of UK Road Traffic Accident Data and its Use in the Development of a Direct Vision Standard for Trucks in London

This paper presents the analysis of UK road accident data to inform the development of a Direct Vision Standard (DVS) for trucks in the UK. The research forms part of a project funded by Transport for London. The DVS allows any truck to be rated in terms of its performance in the field of view afforded the driver. The standard will be used to limit the movement of poorly rated vehicles within central London from 2020. The standard will also foster improved truck designs for direct vision in the future. The analysis used accident data from the UK STATS 19 database between 2010 and 2015. Data were categorized on causation data and a series of accident characteristics to identify scenarios of accidents between trucks and vulnerable road users. These scenarios then informed the design of the DVS, in particular the definition of the areas of greatest risk around the cab.