Overview: The On-The-Spot accident research (OTS) project takes teams of crash investigators to the scenes of accidents alongside emergency services, to collect data on causation. It began in 2000 and is funded by the Department for Transport and the Highways Agency and is now in its third phase. This work is done in collaboration with the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL)
Objectives: By developing a greater understanding of crash causation, we want to help ensure that our roads become safer for everyone and to also contribute to the Government’s target of 40% road casualty reduction by 2010.
Main features of project: The investigating teams are quickly deployed to the scenes of accidents and usually arrive within 20 minutes. Specially marked high conspicuity response vehicles are used with expert police drivers. Our fast response allows us to collect perishable data such as skid mark measurements, meteorological readings and detailed photographs of each crash scene.
Our role: The VSRC team covers a broad area of Nottinghamshire. We are currently developing our human factors expertise and a greater focus is being placed on conducting interviews at the scenes of all accidents attended. Our data is being used to inform UK policy and to support projects across Europe. |
