Impact of Driver, Vehicle, and Environment on Rural Road Crash Rate
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- Form which year are reference 2 and 16?
- By citation under introduction, only Authors are given (Eg. Row 25, 27,58, 73, 79, 90, 107, 135…). Please give author and the corresponding years
- Tab. 3 in p. 4 : What is the difference b/n accident severity and injuries ?
- What are the units of the axis’s on Figure 3. and 4. in p. 6 and 7?
- The units of vertical axis`s in Figure 6. In p. 8 is not clear, this applies for Figure 16. In p.13 too.
- Figure 8. In p. 8: Relative accident frequency during hour of week should be better presented as day of the week
Author Response
Reviewer 1:
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to thank you for taking time to review the paper and give useful comments that really helped improve the overall quality.
All of the comments have been considered and the papers have been updated accordingly.
During the redrawing of the figures, we have also discovered that some of the traffic accident causes figures in the introductory part of the chapter 3 and section 3.1 were for period 2017-2020 and some for 2014-2020. Now all of have been updated for data from 2014-2020. All of the figures now have axes titles and
The word accident has been replaced with a word crash according to the suggestion of the two reviewers.
Changes are commented below your remarks:
- Form which year are reference 2 and 16?
The references have been updated.
- By citation under introduction, only Authors are given (Eg. Row 25, 27,58, 73, 79, 90, 107, 135…). Please give author and the corresponding years
It was all unified to numbers with braces as this is according to the Sustainability instructions. We apologize for the issues with citations. It was due to an error when rebuilding the references before the submission. Now it has been fixed.
- Tab. 3 in p. 4 : What is the difference b/n accident severity and injuries ?
Accident severity is an attribute classifying an accident if there was only material damage or injured. Injuries and fatalities is attribute data showing number of involved persons. Basically the data is overlapping in a way. Explanation in the paper is added.
- What are the units of the axis’s on Figure 3. and 4. in p. 6 and 7?
It is accidents per million (1e6) km and number of accidents. The charts have been replaced with units on the axes.
- The units of vertical axis`s in Figure 6. In p. 8 is not clear, this applies for Figure 16. In p.13 too.
The charts have been replaced with units on the axes. During the redrawing of the figures, we have also discovered that some of the traffic accident causes figures were for period 2017-2020 and some for 2014-2020. Now all of have been updated for data from 2014-2020.
- Figure 8. In p. 8: Relative accident frequency during hour of week should be better presented as day of the week
The x axis units have been changed into day of the week.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present an overview of the impact of driver, vehicle, and environment on rural road accident rate. I would provide the following input.
Overall:
The research overall lacks depth and clarity. The purpose for the research is shallow and is mostly just a series of graphs showing crash data characteristics. Although the results are interesting, the overall conclusions drawn from the results are not very useful to most agencies. The results are very specific for one jurisdiction and not for widespread use.
I would recommend the use of "crash" throughout in place of "accident." Crash is more descriptive as each crash has a reason.
The use of units is inconsistent throughout. There is mostly metric units with some mph units thrown in. Be consistent throughout the document.
Your references are suspect. You have a lot of strong references, but the discussion does not seem to tie to the correct reference on numerous occasions. In many instances when you refer to an author by name, the corresponding reference that you show is not the same name. I will provide a few examples in my specific comments.
You have several broken links to figure and table numbers.
Equations would be referred to by number.
Overall, you have interesting information, but the reference and discussion about the information is lacking depth.
Specific Comments:
Line 39 - Instead of listing the year, list the reference number [5].
Line 73 - Here you refer to Maowei et al. but the reference at the end of the paragraph is [11] which is Chen et al.
Line 87 - "man appears directly..." What does this mean?
Line 90 - Here you refer to Quimby et al. and then have three references [16-18], only one of which is Quimby et al.
Line 107 - Here you refer to Schlogl but the reference [27] is Casado-Sanz. THere are other instances throughout. You need to go through ALL of your references and clean them up.
Line 146 - One example of a missing hyperlink to a figure or table number.
Line 183 - Finish off this sentence with "...period and area as shown in Equation (1)." This would carry over to all equations.
Lines 202-248 - You show a lot of data but do not ever cleary discuss how this data is relevant. You do have some discussion at the end of the paper but there is just a lot of data without a lot of information. There are also several figures with no legends. You need to have a legend on your x- and y-axis (sometimes you even have 2 x-axis and no legend to tell the reader what the information is). Please clean this up.
Line 281 - Figure 9 is too small.
Line 310 - How does this show a significant correlation? Be more specific.
Line 405 - The future work sounds interesting and more useful for a wider audience, and therefore better to publish.
References - The format of the references needs work. Sometimes you have the first name of the author first. Be consistent and thorough.
I hope you are able to make improvements to your paper.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to thank you for taking time to review the paper and give useful comments that really helped improve the overall quality.
All of the comments have been considered and the papers have been updated accordingly.
During the redrawing of the figures, we have also discovered that some of the traffic accident causes figures in the introductory part of the chapter 3 and section 3.1 were for period 2017-2020 and some for 2014-2020. Now all of have been updated for data from 2014-2020. All of the figures now have axes titles with appropriate units.
The word accident has been replaced with a word crash as you and an another reviewer suggested.
Changes in the paper are commented below your remarks:
The research overall lacks depth and clarity. The purpose for the research is shallow and is mostly just a series of graphs showing crash data characteristics. Although the results are interesting, the overall conclusions drawn from the results are not very useful to most agencies. The results are very specific for one jurisdiction and not for widespread use.
Combining results from different jurisdictions would include entirely different scope of work. We assume that the situation in Slovenia is very similar and probably representative for the neighboring/central European area with similar traffic safety levels, but the approach of sistematically analyzing driver, vehicle and environment factors, together with focus on accident frequency seasonality to assess risk for individuals and society is universal and it may be applied elsewhere.
I would recommend the use of "crash" throughout in place of "accident." Crash is more descriptive as each crash has a reason.
As several reviewers suggested, use of word "accident" has been replaced with more specific term "crash". Consequently also the figures have been redrawn.
The use of units is inconsistent throughout. There is mostly metric units with some mph units thrown in. Be consistent throughout the document.
The imperial units (mph) were a part of a citation as it was in the original paper. Now metric equivalent has been added in braces.
Your references are suspect. You have a lot of strong references, but the discussion does not seem to tie to the correct reference on numerous occasions. In many instances when you refer to an author by name, the corresponding reference that you show is not the same name. I will provide a few examples in my specific comments.
You have several broken links to figure and table numbers.
Equations would be referred to by number.
Overall, you have interesting information, but the reference and discussion about the information is lacking depth.
The references were corrected and rephrased.
Specific Comments:
Line 39 - Instead of listing the year, list the reference number [5].
Line 73 - Here you refer to Maowei et al. but the reference at the end of the paragraph is [11] which is Chen et al.
Line 87 - "man appears directly..." What does this mean?
It has been elaborated that humans can have roles of road users, designers or road maintenance personel.
Line 90 - Here you refer to Quimby et al. and then have three references [16-18], only one of which is Quimby et al.
Line 107 - Here you refer to Schlogl but the reference [27] is Casado-Sanz. There are other instances throughout. You need to go through ALL of your references and clean them up.
The references have been cleaned and checked.
Line 146 - One example of a missing hyperlink to a figure or table number.
Hyperlinks have been fixed.
Line 183 - Finish off this sentence with "...period and area as shown in Equation (1)." This would carry over to all equations.
Mentioning of the equations in the text has been changed.
Lines 202-248 - You show a lot of data but do not ever cleary discuss how this data is relevant. You do have some discussion at the end of the paper but there is just a lot of data without a lot of information. There are also several figures with no legends. You need to have a legend on your x- and y-axis (sometimes you even have 2 x-axis and no legend to tell the reader what the information is). Please clean this up.
The figures have been redrawn with axes titles mentioning variables and units.
Line 281 - Figure 9 is too small.
It has been replaced with higher resolution and size.
Line 310 - How does this show a significant correlation? Be more specific.
Explaination has been added in the text.
Line 405 - The future work sounds interesting and more useful for a wider audience, and therefore better to publish.
References - The format of the references needs work. Sometimes you have the first name of the author first. Be consistent and thorough.
The references have been fixed.
Reviewer 3 Report
This study used very innovative methods and analyses and a combination of several datasets, Kudos for that. However, I do have a couple of issues:
(1) While your methods were excellent, your results were not new. Can you take the results a step further and relate them to potential crash prevention measures? Research to Practice!
(2) Did you take into account that the "risky" driving at night could be alcohol-impaired drivers?
(3) I strongly recommend that you substitute the word "crash" for "accident" Accident implies a random event with no cause. A crash has a cause.
(4) Your analyses suggest a "Safe System Approach" to prevent crashes. I would suggest that you discuss that concept.
(5) Page 12, line 324: There is an extra digit in "1,1324"
(6) Page 14, line 378: should be spelled "relatively"
(7) Page 15, lines 403-404: Be specific. How can your "data be used for crash prevention and law enforcement"?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to thank you for taking time to review the paper and give useful comments that really helped improve the overall quality.
All of the comments have been considered and the papers have been updated accordingly.
During the redrawing of the figures, we have also discovered that some of the traffic accident causes figures in the introductory part of the chapter 3 and section 3.1 were for period 2017-2020 and some for 2014-2020. Now all of have been updated for data from 2014-2020. All of the figures now have axes titles with appropriate units.
The word accident has been replaced with a word crash as you and an another reviewer suggested.
Changes in the paper are commented below your remarks:
(1) While your methods were excellent, your results were not new. Can you take the results a step further and relate them to potential crash prevention measures? Research to Practice!
We have added suggestions how the results can be used in the discussion section.
(2) Did you take into account that the "risky" driving at night could be alcohol-impaired drivers?
Thank you for this suggestion. It is hard to tell, to what degree alcohol could be the case, but we have analyzed the data on share of drivers involved in an accident with alcohol in the evaporated air. We have added this to the paper. It shows a daily pattern that is very similar to the accident frequency per kilometer.
(3) I strongly recommend that you substitute the word "crash" for "accident" Accident implies a random event with no cause. A crash has a cause.
It has been replaced in the whole paper (text and figures).
(4) Your analyses suggest a "Safe System Approach" to prevent crashes. I would suggest that you discuss that concept.
Safe system approach - to approach holistically all factors, including driver vehicle and environmental using the same approach. It has been added into the discussion section.
(5) Page 12, line 324: There is an extra digit in "1,1324"
(6) Page 14, line 378: should be spelled "relatively"
Thank you for noticing. We have fixed this.
(7) Page 15, lines 403-404: Be specific. How can your "data be used for crash prevention and law enforcement"?
It has been added into the discussion section.
Please see the attachment
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All the comments have been considered and updated
Author Response
Dear editor,
we would like to thank you for cooperation.
Kind regards,
Authors
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the changes made to the document. While the changes have improved the paper, a lot should be done to clarify the research and have more of an impact on the literature. There were also several recommended changes that were not made based on the original review. A detailed list of comments/changes is as follows:
Title - "Accident" should be changed to "Crash" in the title and throughout the paper. Although this was changed in several locations, there are approximately 50 other instances of "accident" throughout the article. Please search and replace throughout.
Abstract - The abstract does not clearly identify the purpose and need for the research. It also does not provide a clear understanding of the overall results. Please identify ways to continue to improve the abstract to clearly identify the overall contribution of this research.
Line 24 - Here is the first "accident" in the main body (there was one in the abstract). I went through and counted and there are 50 instances of "accident" in the document even though you noted in your response to the reviewer comments that those were changed throughout. Please change throughout.
Line 26 - Although you have cleaned up the references considerably from the first draft of the paper, there are still questions. In this line, for example, you refer to Aarts et al., but then at the end of the sentence, you provide three references (only one of which is Aarts et al.). What are the others?
Line 31 - You use "etc." several times in the paper but it seems as though the list you are referring to is likely finished. Look at all instances of "etc." in the paper and decide if you really need it. If there are other variables that should be included, include them. Otherwise, end your list.
Line 65 - In this line, you state "In addition, we found that..." Who is "we"? Is this research you did? Or is this referring to the literature?
Line 69 - How is the result of speed positive and negative? You don't clarify this.
Line 73 - I am not sure why you added "et al." here when it is already there.
Line 82 - This is another example of using "etc." Please go through and look at all of these and only include them if necessary.
Line 90 - Add "into consideration" after "...should be taken."
Line 91 - Add a name after "...presented in a study" to show who prepared the study.
Lines 46 to 99 and onward - Throughout the literature review the document jumps from topic to topic without any real connection to the purpose of the information presented. Look at how you can better tie it all together and tie it to a clearly defined purpose and need.
Lines 100-102 - What is the connection for this information?
Lines 103 and 108 - Starting with Reference 22, the references overlap with each set of references for the remainder of the literature review. Is there really an overlap between every topic with the previous references? For example, on Line 103 you refer to 22-25, and then on line 108, it is 25, 26. If we go further down, 26 is referenced again on Line 116, and then on Line 119 27 is referenced and on Line 124, 27 is referenced again along with 30. Then on Line 136, 30, and 31 are referenced. It just seems very interesting and too coincidental that you would overlap nearly every set of references. Are you sure the referencing is correct?
Line 137 - This should be Cafisco et al.
Line 145 - There is not much of a connection between the Literature Review and the Materials and Methods. Provide a better transition to connect the sections throughout.
Line 152 - "Annual" should just be "annual"
Line 153 - Include units (per day) on your AADT values.
Line 159 - Are you including all months in 2017-2020? Also on this line (and in several other places in the document), there is no need for "the" before "Figure 1..." This would also be clearer if it were reworded to something like "Figure provides an overview of measurement points and roads on interest."
Line 164 - I think you forgot to include a new table? Table 3 only shows the source of the data and time period. There is nothing about any overlapping of data as noted in Line 165. Also in this discussion, the way it is written, "injuries/fatalities" should be "injury/fatality."
Line 171 - The table title should be "Crash" instead of "Accident"
Figure 1 - This figure is too small.
Line 174 - How do you define "a great number"?
Line 190 - Watch your notation, the variable should be small letter i.
Line 199 - What does "It was then used..." refer to? Be more specific, especially on a topic sentence.
Figure 2 (and other figures) - The title of the y axis is strange (1/1e6 km). Why not just say "crashes per million km" like you do in the text? That would be much clearer.
Figure 4 - Same comment as Figure 2.
Line 225 - Check "accident" in section headings as well.
Line 228 - Why is Figure 5 italicized? There are other figure and table titles that ended up being italicized as well.
Line 240 - When you say "The serious offense rate..." are you referring to number of crashes?
Line 254 - How do you define "a lot higher crash frequency"?
Figure 8 - Again, use "crashes per million km" as the axis title. Somewhere you need to note what the actual day of the week is. There is nowhere that says what day 0 is vs. day 2 or day 3 or day 7. You actually show 8 different days of the week in the figure. Why is Day 4 so low?
Figure 9 - Axis title.
Line 273 - What software?
Lines 279 and 280 - You need to better explain the Pearson Correlation and what the values you note really mean. You simply state the values but do not explain what they mean and the overall implications for your research.
Line 292 - Include units after 55.7 as well.
Line 298 - Capitalize "F" in "Figure." There is something wrong here though. This refers to Figure 9 but it also refers to box plots for male and female drivers and the engine power. There is no figure for box plots of male and female drivers. Box plots are shown in Figure 10 for vehicle brands as discussed in the next paragraph.
Line 304 - Table 5 should not be italicized.
Figure 11 - How is "Serious offense rate" defined? Also, rather than units for traffic flow of "1/h" why not just say "veh/hr"?
Figure 12 - Why does the unit change on the y-axis? Use veh/hr on the x-axis.
Line 321 - Figure 13 does not need to be italicized.
Line 322 - How does it prove that the correlation can be confirmed? I don't see that and you don't explain it.
Figure 13 - What are the units?
Figure 14 - What are the units on the y-axis?
Line 332 (and several other places in the document) - You use a comma here for a decimal. This should be 2.2. You have other places you do that.
Figure 16 - Change "accidents" to "crashes" (and in the text throughout the document as has already been stated)
Line 355 - It is unclear from the text what "time shares" are. Please explain in more detail.
Figure 17 - What is the difference between "timeShare" and "share"?
Figure 18 - What do 0 and 1 mean in "daylight present"? You need to define your variables.
Line 386 - This is another location where a comma (,) is used when a period (.) should be.
Line 409 - Consider saying "under the influence" in place of "impaired by alcohol"
Line 430 - Is this really "popular belief"? Do you have proof of that? Or is it hearsay?
References - Be sure that your format is consistent. For example, Reference 4 does not have the last name first.
There is interesting research here but it needs to be more clearly explained and the purpose and need must be more clearly defined before it is published.
Author Response
Dear editor,
Please see the attachment.
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for your continued revisions to the paper, it has improved considerably. There are still a few things that should be changed in the document.
Line 18 - 0,2 and 2,2 should be 0.2 and 2.2
Line 19 - "peed" should be "Speed"
Line 62 - "Several other studies..." should just be "Other studies..." There are two references at the end of this discussion. Several implies three or more.
Line 69 - Add "and" before "...vehicle components condition."
Line 86 - The first sentence of this paragraph needs to be rewritten. As it is currently written it does not make sense. The author names were inserted in an odd place and it just doesn't makes sense.
Line 117 - Don't start a sentence with a number. If you do, it needs to be spelled out as "Forty-eight..."
Line 129 - Again you note "...the focus of several studies..." but only have two references.
Line 146 - Add parentheses around the i.e., statement.
Line 176 - Add units after the AADT on Arja. On the line before this, "vas" should be "was"
Line 184 - I would recommend including the year on 14/5 as well just to clarify it is the same year.
Line 194 (Figure 1) - The figure is still very small, there are no labels on it for cities, etc., and as it is currently it does not provide any value to the report.
Line 267 - Add "on all road types" to the caption in Figure 6 to be consistent with Figure 5 and clarify the road types.
Line 274 - Change "by hours of the day." to "by hour of the day." in the caption.
Line 290 (Figure 9) - The y-axis label for crash frequency should be "crashes per million km" instead of "accidents per million km"
Line 320 - You still refer to the box plot in Figure 10 for the male/female comparison. There is nothing in Figure 10 about the male/female engine power. I think this sentence should be removed.
Line 335 - You do not ever have a discussion on Figure 11. You don't ever introduce Figure 11 in the text.
Line 346 - Be consistent throughout the document with capitalization on "Pearson Correlation Coefficient" vs. "Pearson correlation coefficient"
Line 376 (Figure 16) - The y-axis label should be "number of crashes" and the legend should be "crashes" instead of "accidents" - The legend could be removed though since there is only one series.
Line 415 - Be consistent on your significant figures for P values (I would recommend 0.000 for all)
Line 570 - Reference 36 was never referenced in the document. That still makes me suspect of the references although they appear to be cleaned up other than this one not being referenced.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Please see the attachment.
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
