Abstract:Based on the rear-end incidents extracted from the China naturalistic driving data, the DREAM (driving reliability and error analysis method) was modified and used to identify contribution factors and causation patterns in these incidents. Those rearend incidents were respectively classified in different driving scenarios, and the logic diagrams of the contribution factors with different detailed categories were obtained. The results showed that the main factors behind the rearend incidents was the adoption of “insufficient force” and “small safety margins”. The characteristics of critical events of four detail categories in the rearend scenarios were also analyzed. In contrast to the results obtained from previous studies in the US and Europe, the deepseated contribution factors was driver’s habitual expectation for the specific driving behavior of other traffic users, instead of the second driving behavior.