Skip to main content
Log in

Weather and traffic accidents in the Czech Republic, 1979–2020

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Police records, kept in the form of yearbooks, enabled analysis of the possible relationships between traffic accidents and the weather in the Czech Republic for the 1979–2020 period. These data were used to create annual series of traffic accidents in general, accidents with only material damage, numbers of people injured (seriously and slightly) and fatalities. Seven weather categories were used to characterise the weather at the time of an accident. The categories “rain”, “onset of rain and light rain”, “snowfall” and “glaze ice and rime” proved the most important, contributing to the highest numbers of accidents, fatalities and injured. Less important were “fog”, “gusty wind” and “other inclement weather”. The influence of the relative annual proportions of all weather categories on the numbers of all accident characteristics fluctuated generally between 10 and 30%. Annual numbers of accidents, fatalities and injured attributed to individual weather categories were statistically significant when correlated with series of annual numbers of days with fog, rain, snowfall, glaze ice and gusty wind. The closest relationship emerged for snowfall, with correlation coefficients between 0.76 and 0.94. The annual numbers of accidents, fatalities and injured attributed to several of the weather categories tended to decrease, especially in the two most recent decades. The discussion section concentrates on the broader context of the results obtained.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All data and materials are available on the request directed to the corresponding author.

Code availability

Not applicable.

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

We extend our thanks to the Division Service of the Traffic Police of the Regional Police Directorate of the Region of South Moravia, and particularly to Jindřich Rybka (Brno) for preparation and provision of accident data for 1979–2008, together with Jan Straka (Prague) for provision of accident data for 2016 and 2020. Tony Long (Carsphairn, Scotland) helped develop the English.

Funding

This paper was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic for SustES – Adaptation strategies for sustainable ecosystem services and food security under adverse environmental conditions project, ref. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

RB designed the study and wrote the manuscript with contribution of all co-authors. KC did basic calculations and finalised all figures. PZ prepared meteorological series based on CHMI data. PD contributed to scatter-plots and their interpretations. LD contributed to the creation of traffic accident database.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rudolf Brázdil.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

Not applicable.

Consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 964 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Brázdil, R., Chromá, K., Zahradníček, P. et al. Weather and traffic accidents in the Czech Republic, 1979–2020. Theor Appl Climatol 149, 153–167 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04042-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04042-3

Navigation