Análise comparativa dos acidentes de trânsito em interseções, com ou sem ilha central, controladas por prioridade: um estudo de caso para a cidade de Natal-RN.

Abstract

The registers of road accidents in Brazil are one of the biggest in the world. The intersections and their neighborhoods are considered to be the places where the majority of the road accidents occur. This work aims to investigate the road accidents, specifically, the ones in the intersections with or without "central islands", controlled by priority. It's also an objective of this work, to analyse the performance of the "central islands" as a mechanism of road accidents' reduction in the intersections. An application for Natal - RN, had allowed analysing the road accidents registered between 1997 and 2000 in 14 (fourteen) intersections controlled by priority at the considered town. Seven of these intersections were "central islands". The conclusion of the comparative analysis between the geometric characteristics, traffic flow and the registered accidents, is that the control islands' implementation at the studied intersections didn't reduce the number and severity of road accidents.