Population ageing and rural road accidents: Analysis of accident severity in traffic crashes with older pedestrians on Spanish crosstown roads

The study of the relations of dependence between population ageing and road safety are becoming increasingly important with the ageing of the population in industrialised nations, which will imply a substantial increase in the number of older drivers and also in older pedestrians and cyclists. While there is extensive literature on the decline of driving and pedestrian skills in the elderly, few studies focus on the impact of age on accident severity according to the type of road. This approach has mainly been used for high-capacity routes, without considering rural roads. Rural roads are also associated with small towns, which have a higher percentage of elderly people who are more dependent on driving due to the absence or limitations of urban public transportation. In recent years Spain has seen a sharp rise in traffic accidents, especially in rural crosstown roads, and population ageing should be analysed as a potential risk factor. This paper contributes to the limited existing literature on rural road safety by applying a logistic regression model to the accidents on Spanish crosstown roads involving one vehicle and one elderly pedestrian in the period 2006-2015. The objective of the study is to analyse the conditional probability of a fatal outcome in the case of a crash resulting in at least one severe injury. On crosstown roads, territorial indicators associated to pedestrian mobility such as the physical severance index are revealed as interesting new variables to be considered in future research.