Ever wonder which areas of your city are the most prone to traffic accidents?
I analyzed 10-years of publicly available historical data on the timing and location of traffic accidents throughout the LA metro area. This collection of over 500,000 traffic accident records indicates surprising results regarding who is most vulnerable to traffic accidents, what time accidents tend to occur, and where they occur throughout Los Angeles. The entire analysis can be found on my Github page but please scroll down to see some of the more insightful highlights of the analysis.
Analysis tools: Python including the Pandas, NumPy, MatPlotLib, Seaborn, & Datetime packages.
When do Traffic accidents occur?
Traffic accident rates start increasing during morning rush hour (6 AM) but keep increasing throughout the day, peaking during the evening rush hour (6 PM).
Traffic accident rates increase throughout the work-week, peaking on Fridays. Weekends are relatively safer, with Sunday being the least likely day for an accident.
Where do Traffic accidents occur?
Traffic in LA can be analyzed by grouping the data into three distinct geographic categories of narrower and narrow scope. Traffic areas, which are areas of the city demarked by their nearest police station, followed by streets, and then specific intersections.
The most dangerous traffic area in LA is the 77th street area. The most dangerous traffic areas in LA all show similar distribution in the timing of accidents and track closely with the city-wide distribution.
The most dangerous street in LA is Western Av, which runs the length of LA. There have been over 6000 accidents on this street in the last 10 years. We also observe a growing variation in the distributions of accident times on the most dangerous streets of LA.
The most dangerous intersection in LA is the Sherman Way and Sepulveda Blvd intersection with over 250 accidents in the last ten years, that an accident every 15 days! Interestingly, this intersection is 20 miles away from downtown LA and possesses a unique distribution in the timing of accidents.
Almost 96% of all accidents occur on streets. Another 3% of accidents happen in parking lots. All other locations, including freeways account for only 1% of accidents in LA.
Who is effected by Traffic accidents?
The most likely victims of traffic accidents are surprisingly in their late 20’s and early 30’s. The likelihood of being the victim of an accident decreases with age until very advanced ages.
Men are almost twice as likely as women to be the victim of a traffic accident in LA. Perhaps suggesting men are more aggressive drivers than women.
The demographics of traffic accident victim in LA tracks closely with the demographics of the population at large of LA, suggesting no racial descent is particularly prone to traffic accidents.
Other discoveries
Only about 75% of accidents are reported the day they occur, the rest are reported within a week