Effect of demographic characteristics on spot speed variations

The speed characteristics are country-based due to variations in demographics, driver habits, attitudes, etc. Thereby, it is necessary to study the main parameters that affect the driving attitude to choose the safe speed. This paper provides an in-depth examination of the differences between two age groups, two weather conditions, three types of vehicle licences, whether the driver using their cell phones during driving, and real speed. The radar speed gun was used to measure infield spot speed in a divided 2-way, 4-lane arterial in Baghdad city, Iraq. Currently, no comparable data set exists in Iraq. The outputs of the study provide database for safety requirements to identify the drivers’ response time to avoid certain crashes. The results revealed that drivers are different in terms of speed, age, vehicle licenses, under different weather conditions. For instance: the mean speed for young drivers is higher than that of elderly drivers. The mean speed of the truck drivers is lowest by approximately 25% as compared with private-cars and taxi drivers. The mean speed under sunny weather conditions is higher than on rainy days by approximately 8.5%. The distracted driver with cellphone drives at 24% lower speed as compared to non-distracted drivers.