Towards Increasing VRU Safety: A Map-Based and Data-Driven Analysis of Accident Black Spots

Today, collisions between Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) and cars account for nearly half of the fatal accidents in Germany. While previously, crossroads have been identified as accident black spots, a deeper understanding of the root causes and effects contributing to these accidents is still subject of research. This work aims to fill in this research gap and specifically investigates accidents between VRUs and cars using a two-parts approach. Analysing a sample of German accident occurrences regarding accident black spots, we show that most accidents between cars and VRUs occur in urban areas. While pedestrians are mostly involved when crossing the road, accidents at intersections account for more than half of the accidents for riders of motorised and non-motorised two-wheelers. To determine formerly hidden factors that affect the accident occurrence at black spots, we subsequently link the georeferenced data of the German Accident Atlas with information from OpenStreetMap. We demonstrate that especially larger roads are prone to severe and fatal accidents. We conclude that a majority of severe and fatal VRU accidents could be prevented when addressing the identified accident black spots with new automotive safety functions. Therefore, we propose that concepts such as V2X-based turn assists with sensors covering the critical areas on crosswalks offer leverage for reducing the causalities in road traffic.