California’s roads and highways can be dangerous in the best of weather conditions. But when snowstorms, mudslides, torrential rain, and high winds occur, drivers can be much more prone to committing roadway errors that lead to car accidents. You may be wondering whether or not weather conditions have a significant impact on the chances of being in a car accident. Below we’ll review how weather conditions impact roads and to what degree they increase the risk of car accidents in California.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration issued a report outlining how specific weather variables impact roads, traffic, and driver operational decisions. Their findings offer some important information that can help California drivers avoid car accidents. Let’s take a look in more detail:
In terms of roadway impacts, wind speed can alter visibility distance (due to blowing snow, dust) and lead to lane obstruction (due to wind-blown snow, debris). High winds can impact traffic speed, travel time, and increase accident risk. Additionally, high winds can have driver operational impacts, such as vehicle performance (stability), access control, and evacuation decision support.
Precipitation can impact roadways through reduced visibility distance, pavement friction, and lane obstruction. In terms of traffic, precipitation can affect roadway capacity, traffic speed, travel time delay, and (again) increase accident risk. Operational impacts of precipitation can include vehicle performance (specifically traction), driver capabilities or behavior, road treatment strategy, traffic signal timing, speed limit control, evacuation decision support, and institutional coordination.
For can impact roadways by reducing visibility distance. For traffic, fog can impact speed, speed variance, travel time delay, and increase accident risk just like high winds or precipitation. The driver operational impacts of fog can include one’s capabilities or behavior, road treatment strategy, access control, and speed limit control.
Pavement temperature can affect roadways by causing infrastructure damage. For drivers, operational impacts can include road treatment strategy.
Pavement Condition:
Many California streets, roads, and highways are – just like many other parts of the country – in desperate need of repair. Pavement conditions can impact roadways in terms of friction, and can also lead to the infrastructure damage we see every day. Pavement conditions can also impact traffic through changes in roadway capacity, traffic speed, travel time delay, and increased car accident risk. Additionally, driver operational control can be impacted in various ways by pavement conditions. Vehicle performance, driver capabilities or behavior (specifically route choice), road treatment strategy, traffic signal timing, and speed limit control can all be affected by pavement conditions.
Standing water on roadways can be very dangerous for drivers. Water level can cause lane submersion, a common roadway impact. In terms of traffic, water level can impact speed, travel time delay, and increase car accident risk. Driver operational control can be impacted, as well as evacuation decision support and institutional coordination.
The U.S. Department of Transportation confirms that, on average, there are over 5,891,000 motor vehicle crashes every year. Approximately 21% of those crashes are weather-related. That equates to roughly 1,235,000 weather-related car accidents in the U.S. each year.
Weather-related crashes are defined as “those crashes that occur in adverse weather (i.e., rain, sleet, snow, fog, severe crosswinds, or blowing snow/sand/debris) or on slick pavement (i.e., wet pavement, snowy/slushy pavement, or icy pavement).”
In terms of fatalities, nearly 5,000 people are killed (with over 418,000 people injured) in weather-related crashes each year. That figure comes as a ten-year average (from 2007 to 2016) and is based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data.
The vast majority of weather-related crashes occur on wet pavement (70%) and during rainfall (46%). Winter conditions – snow, sleet, ice – are known to cause a smaller percentage of weather-related car crashes, with 18% during snow or sleet, 13% on icy pavement, and 16% taking place on snowy or slushy pavement. Only 3% of weather-related motor vehicle crashes happen in the presence of fog.
The U.S. Department of Transportation offers the following table summarizing weather-related motor vehicle accident statistics.
Weather-Related Car Accident Statistics (Annual Averages)
| Road Weather Conditions | Weather-Related
Crash Statistics | ||
|---|---|---|---|
10 Year Average (2007 – 2016) |
10-year Percentages |
||
| Wet Pavement | 860,286 crashes | 15% of vehicle crashes | 70% of weather-related crashes |
| 324,394 persons injured | 15% of crash injuries | 78% of weather-related injuries | |
| 4,050 persons killed | 12% of crash fatalities | 76% of weather-related fatalities | |
| Rain | 556,151 crashes | 10% of vehicle crashes | 46% of weather-related crashes |
| 212,647 persons injured | 10% of crash injuries | 51% of weather-related injuries | |
| 2,473 persons killed | 8% of crash fatalities | 46% of weather-related fatalities | |
| Snow/Sleet | 219,942 crashes | 4% of vehicle crashes | 18% of weather-related crashes |
| 54,839 persons injured | 3% of crash injuries | 14% of weather-related injuries | |
| 688 persons killed | 2% of crash fatalities | 13% of weather-related fatalities | |
| Icy Pavement | 156,164 crashes | 3% of vehicle crashes | 13% of weather-related crashes |
| 41,860 persons injured | 2% of crash injuries | 11% of weather-related injuries | |
| 521 persons killed | 2% of crash fatalities | 10% of weather-related fatalities | |
| Snow/Slushy Pavement | 186,076 crashes | 4% of vehicle crashes | 16% of weather-related crashes |
| 42,036 persons injured | 2% of crash injuries | 11% of weather-related injuries | |
| 496 persons killed | 2% of crash fatalities | 10% of weather-related fatalities | |
| Fog | 25,451 crashes | 1% of vehicle crashes | 3% of weather-related crashes |
| 8,902 persons injured | 1% of crash injuries | 3% of weather-related injuries | |
| 464 persons killed | 2% of crash fatalities | 9% of weather-related fatalities | |
For crash type, the following statistics have been confirmed:
Roughly 15% of fatal car crashes, 19% of injury crashes, and 22% of property-damage-only (PDO) crashes occur in the presence of adverse weather and/or slick pavement every year. On an annual basis, adverse weather conditions lead to:
Again, out of the nearly 6 million vehicular accidents – car, truck, motorcycle, moped, scooter, etc. – that occur each year, approximately 21% are weather-related. That’s over 1.2 million annual car accidents in the U.S. that are caused by inclement weather conditions.
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