An overview of car-to-two-wheeler accidents in China:​ guidance for AEB assessment

Sui, Bo; Zhou, Shengqi; Zhao, Xiaohua; Lubbe, Nils

Affiliations

Abstract

Users of two- and three-wheelers account for 35% of total traffic fatalities in China, a statistic which calls for attention. C-NCAP has predicted that AEB for pedestrian protection will be assessed from 2018 onwards, and it appears likely that AEB for two-wheelers will also be assessed in the near future. The objective of this study was to describe car-to-two-wheeler accidents in China in detail to guide the selection of relevant scenarios and test parameters for two-wheeler AEB assessment. Data from the China In-Depth Accident Study for the years 2011 to 2016 was analyzed for this study. Statistics were available for 830 accidents involving one two-wheeler (referring to two-wheeled vehicle) and one M1 vehicle (passenger car, SUV, or minivan) and 1,017 recorded two-wheeler users, including both drivers and passengers of the two-wheelers.

Of the 830 two-wheelers, electric powered-two-wheelers constituted 42%; motorcycles, 32%; moped, 16%; and normal or electric bicycles, 11%. Of the total 1,017 two-wheeler users involved, only 12% of them wore a helmet and nearly half (46%) were severely or fatally injured.

The study included 830 car-to-two-wheeler accidents, of which 67% occurred during daytime. City areas accounted for 67% of accidents and 80% occurred on roads with a speed limit below 60 km/h. The majority of accidents occurred at road junctions (62%).

A case-by-case analysis of the relative movements of the bicycle and car before the collision showed that in 47% of accidents the car and the two-wheeler were moving perpendicularly to each other; in 21%, longitudinally from opposite directions; and in 31%, longitudinally from the same direction. In the majority of cases, the car was going straight forward before the crash (52%), while in 28% it was turning left, and in 20% it was turning right. For the two-wheelers, 83% were going straight forward, while 15% were turning left, and only 2% were turning right. Information about vehicle speed was not available, but road speed limits can give an indication of vehicle speed. The data was not necessarily representative of China as national statistics are not available.

The results of this study show that an electric-powered two-wheeler is the most common type of two- wheeler, which is easy to understand that the electric power-two-wheelers are very popular in China. The most common accident scenario for the car-to-two-wheeler accidents is a straightforward moving vehicle colliding with a straight forward moving two-wheeler in perpendicular direction. This can be explained by the fact that most accidents happened at crossings.

Our recommendations, therefore, based on Chinese real-world car-to-two-wheeler accidents, are that priority for AEB assessment should be given to a straightforward-moving car impacting a straightforward- moving electric powered two-wheeler from a perpendicular direction with a speed of up to 60 km/h during daytime. Turning cars, collisions with motorcycles, and nighttime driving are the scenarios that should be considered next.

Links

URL: http://indexsmart.mirasmart.com/25esv/PDFfiles/25ESV-000204.pdf

Cited Works (2)

Year	Entry
2009	Kong C, Yang J, Otte D. A study of bicyclist accidents in Changsha of China and Hannover of Germany. In: Proceedings of the 21st International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 15-18, 2009; Stuttgart, Germany.
2013	Takahashi H, Miyazaki H, Narita S, Shamoto T, Mase Y. Development of pop-up hood system for pedestrian protection. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 27-30, 2013; Seoul, South Korea.

Cited By (3)

Year	Entry
2019	Cao Y, Xiao L, Dong H, Wang Y, Wu X, Li P, Qiu Y. Typical pre-crash scenarios reconstruction for two-wheelers and passenger vehicles and its application in parameter optimization of AEB system based on NAIS database. In: Proceedings of the 26th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 10-13, 2019; Eindhoven, Netherlands.
2018	Sui B, Lubbe N, Wu H, Larsson A. What are dangerous car‐to‐two‐wheeler scenarios in China? a comparison of actual crash scenarios and perceived risky scenarios. In: Proceedings of the 2018 International IRCOBI Asia Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. April 25-28, 2018; Lonavala, India.31-34.
2020	Pan D, Han Y, Jin Q, Huang H. A preliminary analysis of vehicle-to-powered two-wheeler accident scenarios based on the VRU-TRAVi database. In: Proceedings of the 2020 International IRCOBI Asia Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. 2020; Beijing, China.17-20.