The 165,469 crossing collision accidents that occurred at intersections without signals are examined more closely below.
Of the crossing collisions that occurred at intersections without signals, nearly three-quarters took place in urban areas (Fig. 6). Of these, almost 90%, or 107,323 in 122,845 accidents, happened at intersections of medium size or smaller: intersections of two narrow roads, of a narrow road and a medium-wide road, or of two medium-wide roads¹.
As shown in Fig. 7, road environment factors² caused the primary party³ to crash the car in about 10% of all crossing collisions, in addition to human factors. Of this 10%, or 12,765 cases, about 70% (9,091 cases) were due to the view being blocked by buildings, etc.
To summarize, crossing collisions tend to occur most often at "medium-sized or smaller intersections without signals in urban areas". At such intersections, "visibility blocked by buildings, etc." is one road environment factor that frequently contributes to accidents.
¹ Narrow road-less than 5.5 m wide
Medium-wide road-5.5 m and above but under 13.0 m wide
Wide road-13.0 m and wider
² Road environment factors indicate poor road conditions, inadequate road facilities, poor sight visibility and other factors that may have contributed to an accident.
³ Primary party means the party, among those involved in an accident, who is most at fault. If parties are equally negligent, the primary party is the one who is least injured.
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2) Who Is Involved?
Figure 5 presents typical combinations of parties involved in crossing collisions at intersections without signals, as well as characteristics of their age-groups and traffic violations that are most often committed by the parties.
By combination of parties, crossing collisions between two cars accounted for 40.0% (66,158 cases) in 2006, followed by car-bicycle collisions, 36.8% (60,898 cases), as indicated in Fig. 8.
Age of car drivers involved in crossing collisions as primary parties is fairly evenly distributed among age groups, as shown in Fig. 9, whereas young cyclists aged 15 or below are over-represented: over 30% of all primary-party cyclists, or in 3,214 cases. By traffic violations committed by primary parties, illustrated in Fig. 10, "failure to stop where required" took up almost 50% (4,937 cases) of all cyclists, and "failure to confirm safety" represented about 40% (62,178 cases) among primary-party drivers.
As can be seen, almost as many bicycle to car crossing collision accidents as car to car accidents occur at intersections without signals. The most common traffic violations are running stop signs and failure to confirm safety.
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