Effect of driver & vehicle characteristics on speeds at a tangent section of a rural highway in Jordan

This study investigated the effect of driver and vehicle characteristics on vehicular speeds on a selected tangent rural section of two lane two way highway (speed limit = 80 km/h) in Jordan. The study found that, drivers had an overall average speed of 85.86 km/h with a standard deviation of 17.34 km/h. Older drivers were found to have lower speeds than younger drivers. Male drivers had higher but not significantly different mean speeds than female drivers. Seat belt users had higher mean speeds than non-seat belt users. Considering vehicle type, passenger car were found to have the highest speeds, followed by pickups, busses, vans and trucks respectively. Newer vehicles had higher speeds than older vehicles. Vehicular speeds were inversely proportional to the number of occupants in the vehicle. Loaded pickups and trucks had lower speeds than unloaded ones.