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The most typical and catastrophic car-motorcycle crash occurs when a car manoeuvres into the path of an approaching motorcycle at an intersection, which involves a car driver violating motorcycle's right of way (ROW). In Taiwan, however, motorcyclists are frequently the ROW violator--they are observed to frequently infringe upon the ROW of oncoming vehicles at intersections. Such a ROW crash in which a left-turn motorcyclist crosses in front of approaching traffic appears to be a safety problem in terms of its frequency and accident consequence. Using the National Taiwan Crash Database, the present study estimates a logistic regression model to predict the likelihood of an approach-turn motorcycle-turning crash (relative to a car-turning crash). Results indicate that given a ROW crash where the rider was female, old, drunk, unlicensed, riding a moped, and on a NBU roadway, the likelihood of a motorcycle-turning crash tends to increase. Our study contributes to the existing motorcycle safety research by reporting the determinants of the unique crashes in which the motorcyclist is the ROW violator., 1. Introduction Past studies [1-5] have identified motorcycle right-of-way (ROW) crash as the most typical and catastrophic car-motorcycle crash that occurs at an intersection. The crash type involves a car [...]

This paper examines pedestrian anatomical injuries and crash characteristics in back-to-traffic and facing-traffic crashes. Pedestrian crashes involving pedestrians walking along streets (i.e. with their backs to traffic or facing traffic) have been overlooked in literature. Although this is not the most frequent type of crash, the crash consequence to pedestrians is a safety concern. Combining Taiwan A1A2 police-reported accident data and data from the National Health Insurance Database from years 2003-2013, this paper examines anatomical injuries and crash characteristics in back-to-traffic and facing-traffic crashes. There were a total of 830 and 2267 pedestrian casualties in back-to-traffic and facing-traffic crashes respectively. The injuries sustained by pedestrians and crash characteristics of these two crash types were compared with those of other crossing types of crashes (nearside crash, nearside dart-out crash, offside crash, and offside dart-out crash). Odds of various injuries to body regions were estimated using logistic regressions. Key findings include that the percentage of fatalities in back-to-traffic crashes is the highest; logistic models reveal that pedestrians in back-to-traffic crashes sustained more head, neck, and spinal injuries than did pedestrians in other crash types, and unlit darkness and non-built-up roadways were associated with an increased risk of pedestrian head injuries. Several crash features (e.g. unlit darkness, overtaking manoeuvres, phone use by pedestrians and drivers, and intoxicated drivers) are more frequently evident in back-to-traffic crashes than in other types of crashes. The current research suggests that in terms of crash consequence, facing traffic is safer than back to traffic. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]