Bicycle safety

Over 1,500 Street Story reports submitted in Humboldt County!

November 14, 2025
Submitted by Lucia Ornelas

People who live or travel in Humboldt County have used the Street Story platform to make more than 1,500 reports of hazards, near-misses, crashes, and safe places on local streets, roads and highways as of November 5, 2025. Funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety, Street Story is a community engagement platform that allows residents, community groups, and agencies to collect information about transportation crashes, near-misses, general hazards, and safe locations to...

Text Version of CPBSP Interactive Map

Below you will find a web accessible, text version of our interactive Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Program (CPBSP) Map, which highlights reports created from 2025 onwards from the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program (CPBST) and the...

Safety Impacts of Vehicle Weight on Vulnerable Road Users

Safety Impacts of Vehicle Weight on Vulnerable Road Users
Research Team:

Matthew Raifman
Amalia Stahl
SangHyouk Oum


Funding Organization:

California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS)


Summary:

A person in a motorized wheelchair on a sidewalk in between a truck and SUVnd

(Photo...

SafeTREC's Griswold to present on Unified Safe System Implementation Framework at 2025 AASHTO Safety Summit

October 13, 2025
Submitted by Lisa Peterson

The Safe System Approach (SSA) is central to U.S. transportation safety. While progress is underway, it is often siloed and reactive. On October 28, 2025 SafeTREC director Julia Griswold will present a poster at the 2025 AASHTO Safety Summit and Peer Exchange in New Orleans, LA that proposes a Unified Safe System Implementation Framework combining concepts from public health, context-sensitive design, and kinetic energy risk management to address this. The matrix links SSA elements to...

Doctoral student Katarina Cook to present at AMA Research Challenge Oct. 22-23, 2025

October 13, 2025
Submitted by Lisa Peterson

Former SafeTREC visiting student researcher and current doctoral student at UC Davis School of Medicine and Institute of Transportation Studies Katarina Cook will be presenting the poster "At the Intersection of Hit-and-Runs and Homelessness: Pilot Risk Analysis and Postmortem Case Series" at the American Medical Association (AMA) Research Challenge virtual symposim. This presentation will highlight findings from a pilot study co-authored by SafeTREC director Julia Griswold and and research data analyst Liza Lutzker, that investigated how...

Pairing Speed Limit Reductions and Infrastructure to Lower Fatal and Serious (FSI) Crashes

Noelani Fixler
Melie Ekunno
2025

While recent California legislative reforms grant jurisdictions greater flexibility to lower speed limits, evidence suggests that reductions in posted speed limits alone are insufficient to meaningfully reduce crash severity. This research brief examines how speed limit reductions, when paired with infrastructure design, enforcement strategies, and contextual land-use planning, can more effectively lower FSI outcomes. Aligned with the Safe System Approach, the countermeasure layers of roadway geometry, lighting, bicycle-specific infrastructure, and enforcement shape driver behavior and...

Advancing Youth Helmet Adoption Through Community-Based Programming

Melie Ekunno
Lilette Gorostieta
Kris Leckie
2025

Bicycling provides youth with mobility, independence, and opportunities for physical activity, but head injuries remain a leading risk of biking-related crashes. Helmets are among the most effective tools for preventing serious injury, yet rates of consistent use among children and adolescents remain low and unevenly distributed across demographic groups. This paper reviews evidence on the social, cultural, and structural factors shaping helmet use and examines the role of school-based programs in promoting safer biking practices. Findings indicate that free and subsidized helmet...

Pedestrian and Bicyclist Exposure

SafeTREC research on pedestrian and bicyclist exposure California SHS Pedestrian Exposure Model

Figure of direct demand modeling process

This project aims to develop one of the first statewide pedestrian exposure models for the California State Highway System. This model...

Bicycle Crash Corridors

A Data-Driven Method to Define and Identify Bicycle Crash Corridors
Research Team:

Dr. Aditya Medury
Dr. Offer Grembek


Funding Organization:

California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)


Study Description:

While spot safety approaches are effective and necessary, they address the safety problem in a reactive manner and on a very small scale. To complement spot identification methods, transportation safety practitioners have shown an increased interest in developing approaches that can also lead to the...

Vulnerable Road User Safety

SafeTREC research on vulnerable road user safety
Bicycle Crash Corridors

Figure 2 of heatmap of corridors

While spot safety approaches are effective and necessary, they address the safety problem in a reactive manner and on a very small scale...