**1. Introduction**

Safe driving entails a complex combination of behaviors in which the driver is required to successfully perform a number of complex activities concurrently [1]. Such activities include (but are not limited to) route detection and tracking, speed and lateral position controlling, collision avoiding, road laws obeying, and vehicle systems status monitoring [2]. Drivers are often observed as engaging in activities that will likely divert their attention away from the main crucial activity required for safe driving [1]. Pashler [3] pointed out that humans normally have limited capability to carry out more than two tasks in parallel.

The definitions of distracted driving reported in the literature vary. Distracted driving occurs when the recognition of the information required for safe driving is delayed due to something such as an individual, an event, or an activity inside or outside the vehicle, forcing the driver to divert his attention away from the driving task [4,5]. Distraction can undermine driving performance and impact driver behavior in different ways and to various degrees. Dingus et al. [6] maintained that driver distraction and slips of attention

**Citation:** Al-Rousan, T.M.; Umar, A.A.; Al-Omari, A.A. Characteristics of Crashes Caused by Distracted Driving on Rural and Suburban Roadways in Jordan. *Infrastructures* **2021**, *6*, 107. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/infrastructures6080107

Academic Editors: Krzysztof Goniewicz, Robert Czerski and Marek Kustra

Received: 18 June 2021 Accepted: 22 July 2021 Published: 29 July 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

have a significant influence on road crashes and other related road safety issues. Distraction reduces the performance of the driver and is an important factor in the occurrence of traffic accidents [7,8]. Louw et al. [9] indicated that over 90% of reported traffic accidents were the outcome of human error and caused by issues related to the acquisition of visual information. Moreover, drivers can be held responsible for causing 90% of critical traffic conditions [6,10]. Khattak et al. [11] indicated that human factors still contribute to 93% of crashes, whereas recognition errors (including distraction) are found to be the driving error contributing to the highest percentage of crashes.

Regan et al. [12] defined driver inattention as " . . . insufficient, or no attention, to activities critical for safe driving". They also listed several forms of driver inattention such as biological factors that block the driver from noticing crucial information for safe driving; misprioritized attention of drivers (i.e., drivers' attention focused on one side of driving while excluding another); and driver distraction, which is considered as one form of driver inattention where a competing or a secondary task (which can be driving-related or nondriving-related) diverts the attention of the drivers away from crucial safe driving tasks.

Goodsell et al. [1] conducted a comprehensive review of studies on driver distraction and listed four major moderating factors that might influence the occurrence of driver distraction. The first moderating factor is driver characteristics (age and driving experience). The second moderating factor is the level of demand of the driving task. Weather, traffic, and road conditions were found to influence the demand of driving tasks [13]. The third moderating factor is the level of demand for attention of the competing activity (i.e., visual– manual vs. auditory–vocal). The fourth moderating factor is the drivers' ability to change their behavior to keep satisfactory driving performance in the face of competing tasks (also known as self-regulation) [14].

Shortfalls of driving performance due to engagement in competing tasks have been found to include the following: poor lane keeping and speed control, increase in reaction time, skipping traffic signals, inadequate headway distances, risky gap acceptances, reduction in situational awareness, and visual scanning of the roadway [15–18]. Many of these shortfalls in driving performance are correlated with a substantial risk of crashes [6]. For example, poor speed control, when examined separately from other causal factors such as driver distraction, might increase crash risk by 12.8 times, and short headway distances can increase crash risk by 13.5 times [6].

Young et al. [13] indicated that driver distraction might be affected by the demand of the driving task, which in turn may be influenced by factors such as weather, traffic, and road conditions. Generally, more demanding tasks impair driving performance more. Accordingly, it is expected that distractions in different areas and road types may vary.

Driving tasks might be affected by road aggressiveness [19]. Spanish drivers' perceptions of aggressive behavior and the most aggressive acts performed when driving were studied by Alonso et al. [19]. Their results show that both infractions and dangerous behaviors correspond to aggressive driving, which definitely becomes a source of distraction. It has also been found that drivers who tend to have several accidents give less importance to elements that can affect the driving task such as distraction.

Xuedong et al. [20] indicated that crash rates in rural sections are regularly lower than those in urban ones. They also indicated that rural areas have lower crash risk when compared to urban places. Additionally, it was found that an increase in traffic volume and section length would increase the frequency of crashes and lower the chances of the occurrence of severe crashes. Research indicates that fatality rates in rural areas are higher than in urban locations [21–23]. Similarly, it is expected that suburban roadways will have similar characteristics of crash potential. Suburban roadways are transitional high-speed roadways between low-speed urban streets and high-speed rural highways. They have the characteristics of both rural (i.e., high-speed) and urban (i.e., with curb and gutter used for drainage) roadways [24]. Territorial variables (built environment and physical severance) can affect the occurrence of accidents, even due to distraction. In their study on traffic crashes on rural roads with older pedestrians, Casado-Sanz et al. [25] indicated that a small number of studies in the literature have discussed territorial variables (built environment and physical severance). Casado-Sanz et al. [25] aimed at determining the significant factors that increase the probability of a fatal outcome in the case of a crash involving at least one seriously injured individual at rural crosstown roads. The results revealed that the physical severance index (territorial variable) was very significant and suggested that the probability of a fatal outcome on a lateral rural crosstown road is almost two times higher than that at the baseline condition of a central rural crosstown road.

In Jordan, the rapid growth in population was accompanied by an increase in vehicle ownership. According to Jordan's Department of Statistics [26], there were about 10.5 million inhabitants in 2019. Additionally, Driver and Vehicle License Department (DVDL) [27] records show that the number of licensed drivers in 2019 exceeded 2.5 million, and that there were around 1.6 million registered vehicles. The majority of Jordan's population (90.33%) live in urban or suburban areas (areas are classified as follows: urban when the population > 10,000 inhabitants, and suburban when the population falls between 5000 and 10,000 inhabitants [28]). Consequently, a rapid growth in population and vehicle ownership has contributed, among other factors, to the increasing number of crashes.

Accident statistics clearly show that when compared to developed countries, Jordan suffers from a relatively low level of traffic safety, which results in great socio-economic losses. The Annual Report of Traffic Accidents in Jordan [29] showed that 161,511 traffic accidents occurred in Jordan in 2019, of which 10,857 were human injury accidents that resulted in 643 fatalities at an estimated financial cost of around USD 454 million. When compared with accidents worldwide, Jordan ranked in the top four countries in the year 2017 in relation to deaths per 10,000 vehicles. In the year 2019, human-related factors were responsible for 98.2% of accidents in Jordan that resulted in human injuries. Driver fault (not taking the necessary precautions) accounted for a high percentage (around 40%) of injuries and deaths in 2019 [26].

Due to the significant impact of distraction on driver performance and the great losses resulting from it, this study aimed to identify the most salient driver faults that cause crashes on nine segments of Jordan's rural and suburban roadways using the available crash data. The study also sought to examine crashes with distracted driving as the driver's fault and to investigate the differences between crashes caused by distracted driving on rural and suburban roadways. Knowing which road factors influence distracted driving on rural and suburban roadways can help researchers, traffic experts, and authorities to identify the most effective measures that may reduce driver distraction and target different driver groups with the best practices that fit their driving behaviors and keep them attentive. Likewise, the best practices can be implemented on different roadway types, under varying weather conditions, and at different times of the year.

### **2. Methodology**
