Statistical Analysis of Vehicle Crashes in Mississippi Based on Crash Data from 2010 to 2014
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Summary
This study addresses the critical traffic safety situation in Mississippi, which exhibits vehicle crash fatality rates nearly twice the national average. Motivated by the need to identify high-risk locations and causal factors to implement cost-efficient countermeasures, the research analyzes vehicle crash data from 2010 to 2014 collected by the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT). The primary objectives were to characterize the geographic distribution of crashes, categorize potential causal factors, and statistically evaluate the effects of these factors on crash severity. The methodology employed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to visualize statewide crash distributions across primary and secondary road segments and MDOT maintenance districts. Statistical analysis was conducted using SAS software, utilizing Type III Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to assess the significance of various crash factors and a Multinomial Logit Model (MNL) to estimate the probability of crash severity levels. The study focused on three comparison scenarios: specific crash-prone highways (US-49 and MS-25), statewide urban versus rural areas, and coastal urban versus hinterland urban areas. Explanatory variables included Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), location type, median type, number of lanes, speed limit, surface condition, surface type, weather, and light conditions. Key findings reveal that property damage-only crashes are the most frequent, followed by injury and fatality crashes. High crash frequencies were concentrated in metropolitan areas, including Jackson, Hattiesburg, and the Gulf Coast. However, crash severity patterns differed by region; rural areas and coastal urban areas exhibited significantly higher rates of injury and fatality crashes compared to urban and hinterland areas, respectively. Statistical analysis identified AADT, location, speed limit, surface type, and light conditions as significant factors influencing crash severity on major highways. In statewide comparisons, all examined variables were highly significant in rural areas, while surface condition was insignificant in coastal urban areas. The MNL results quantified these relationships, showing that factors such as higher speed limits and dark, unlighted conditions increased the probability of severe outcomes. The significance of this research lies in its provision of data-driven insights for targeted traffic safety interventions. By distinguishing between high-frequency and high-severity locations, the study supports the MDOT Strategic Highway Safety Plan by identifying specific geographic areas and causal factors that require focused countermeasures. The findings suggest that addressing speeding, lighting conditions, and rural road characteristics could effectively reduce the disproportionately high fatality rates in Mississippi, offering a framework for cost-efficient improvements in traffic safety infrastructure and policy.
Key finding
Crashes in rural areas and coastal zones resulted in significantly higher proportions of injuries and fatalities compared to urban hinterland areas, with speed limit, surface condition, and light condition identified as statistically significant predictors of crash severity.
Methodology
dataset
Sample size: 503380
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | partial | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified_with_issues.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
- incidence prevalence
- demographic disparities
- urban rural setting
- comparative international
- fatality injury trends
- crash typology
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes
- Methodological Resource: dataset resource