“Hidden Risk Structures” in Traffic Accidents: Exploring Next-Generation Safety Strategies through Injury Risk Mapping

Abstract

In this study, we created an “injury risk mapping” for traffic accidents and proposed a new perspective for traffic safety strategies. While conventional safety measures have primarily focused on “scenarios” such as collision speed and collision direction, recent findings suggest that “individual factors” such as age and medical history significantly influence injury risks in various body regions, including the head and thorax.

Using a risk prediction model incorporating 25 explanatory variables (vehicle damage level, accident situation factors, safety devices, individual factors, and medical history) and 14 injury risk indicators, combined with an artificial DOE (Design of Experiments) approach, we visualized the overall structure of injury risk and clarified both the overlooked risk areas in conventional safety measures and their specific contributing factors.

The results revealed that the dominant risk factors vary by injury region, that individual factors and medical history have a pronounced impact on specific body regions, and that certain risk areas remain undetected within existing scenario frameworks.

These findings are expected to serve as a starting point for future safety strategies, helping to identify “the next priority areas” and “which body regions and individual factors should be considered more carefully.”