Traffic accident research at the Hannover Medical School
The traffic accident research of the Hannover Medical School is an interdisciplinary traffic accident research project for traffic accidents with personal injuries that has existed in Hannover since 1973 . Based on surveys at the scene of the accident by students, details about the course of the accident are recorded and then reconstructed by engineers. The aim of traffic accident research is to develop measures to reduce the risk of accidents and the consequences of injury.
A unique selling point is the low-threshold investigation of traffic accidents of all vehicles. A recording takes place from the degree of injury and is independent of the vehicle manufacturer. At the same time, traffic accident research at the Medical University is one of the largest in Germany, with an average of 1,000 accidents recorded each year.
There is close cooperation with the sister organization, traffic accident research at TU Dresden . For example, the same rules apply to accident recording and processing.
There is also a collaboration with BASt as part of the German In-Depth Accident Study .
Accident recording
In parallel to the accident recording by the police, up to 3000 different parameters are recorded independently. Accident research is also seen as a positive contribution to the work of the police, as accident research has considerably more material to record accidents than the average patrol car and, due to its special focus on traffic accidents, has greater know-how. However, no data from accident research is passed on to the police here.
For example
- Accident tracks on / next to the road,
- Vehicle deformation and damage,
- Severity, localization and treatment of injuries to those involved and
- human, technical and environmental influences.
The accident recording team usually consists of a doctor (especially medical students), two technicians (especially mechanical engineering students) and a coordinator who guides the team from the office during the accident recording and who checks whether new accidents meet the criteria for a Meet accident recording.
A traffic accident meets the criteria for inclusion if
- at least one person is at least slightly injured and
- the accident happened within the survey period and
- the accident happened within the survey area.
The traffic accidents are reported via the Hanover Police Department and the Hanover Fire Brigade .
The survey took place in 14 shifts per week until 2019: Every week, accidents were recorded either between midnight and 6 a.m. (night shift) and 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. (day shift) or between 6 a.m. and 12 a.m. (morning shift) and 6 p.m. and midnight (late shift ) recorded. In the shifts between midnight and 6 a.m., the accident recording team drives with a smaller crew (1 doctor and 1 technician) due to the lower number of traffic accidents. Starting in 2020, the survey will take place in 7 shifts per week: The survey period per day is determined randomly between night, early, day and late shift.
The boundaries of the Hanover region are the boundaries of the survey area . It thus covers a total of 2289 km², of which around 10% have urban development and is therefore comparable with the German average.
Four emergency vehicles are available to record accidents on site:
- Two VW Transporter T5 as a technician's vehicle with a roof platform, safety material, light mast, measuring rods, tripods for a 3D laser scanner and cameras for taking pictures from a bird's eye view as well as a tool kit
- A VW Tiguan as a medical vehicle with a reduced set of equipment for the technician vehicle and additional material for qualified first aid.
- An Opel Astra as a company car and replacement vehicle for the medical vehicle.
All vehicles are equipped with a yellow light device.
history
When the number of deaths in accidents reached a new high in 1971, the federal government decided to research the causes of accidents more closely. For this reason, teams in Heidelberg, Berlin and Hanover were commissioned to research traffic accidents. Harald Tscherne took over the task in Hanover and built up a team of engineers, doctors and psychologists. In 1985, Dietmar Otte became project manager after 7 years in traffic accident research. In 2015 Heiko Johannsen took over the management.
Blue light on emergency vehicles
Since the beginning of traffic accident research, the vehicles used in accident research have been equipped with flashing lights and horns due to an exemption from the city of Hanover. The aim of the right of way was to arrive at the scene of the accident quickly so that all traces could be recorded.
In May 2008 there was a traffic accident in the Hanover district of List between a small car and an emergency research vehicle on an emergency drive. The emergency vehicle drove into an intersection when it was red with the blue light and emergency horn switched on. The occupants of both vehicles were seriously injured in the accident. In the following there was a lawsuit, so that the OLG Celle found in the judgment of August 3, 2011 that the vehicles used in traffic accident research do not fall under Section 35 of the StVO .
As a result, the city of Hanover revoked the exemption for the installation of blue lights and emergency horns and instead issued a permit for the installation of yellow lights as well as far-reaching exemptions (e.g. exception to various parking restrictions, permission to drive on forest paths in the Eilenriede urban forest , driving on one-way streets against the direction of travel and the hard shoulder when congestion forms on the expressways and highways of the region).
Special surveys
In the Hanover region, all fatalities have been recorded outside of the survey period since the beginning of 2019. The aim is to record serious traffic accidents more precisely and to better research the causes of fatal traffic accidents.
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://mhh-unfallforschung.de/de_DE/
- ↑ https://www.haz.de/Hannover/Aus-der-Stadt/Uebersicht/Medizinische-Hochschule-untersucht-seit-40-Jahren-Unfaelle
- ↑ https://stadtreporter.de/hannover/news/wirtschaft/professor-otte-gibt-leitung-der-mhh-unfallforschung-an-dr-johannsen-ab
- ↑ http://www.dbovg.niedersachsen.de/jportal/?quelle=jlink&docid=KORE220192011&psml=bsndprod.psml&max=true