A Study on the Characteristics of Traffic Accidents for the Elderly Pedestrians on Rural Highways

Elderly pedestrians account for more than 30% of all deaths in traffic accident and the number of elderly-related traffic accidents are increasing every year. Considering Korea's quickly aging society, drastic measures must henceforth be taken. Taking notice of the elderly living in and moving around the provinces, this research focused on analyzing the characteristics of elderly pedistrians' traffic accidents on provincial roads and developing an Equivalent Property Damage Only (EPDO) model. The authors collected 720 traffic accident data points from the police agency and developed the EPDO model, weighted differently by light injury, severe injury, and death using Multiple Regression Analysis. As a result, the speed of vehicles is the most influential variable in EPDO, and the shape of the road is significant as well. Therefore, various policies should be established like improving the environmental factors of provincial roads, like expanding speed-reduction treatments and signage, and setting up detours around areas of high elderly concentration.