Traffic safety decisions are based predominantly on information from police collision reports. However, a number of studies suggest that such reports tend to underrepresent bicycle and pedestrian collisions. Underreporting could lead to inaccurate evaluation of crash rates and may under- or overestimate the effects of road safety countermeasures. This review examined ten studies that used data linkage to explore potential underreporting of pedestrian and/or bicyclist injury in police collision reports.
This study examines data from the California EMS Information System (CEMSIS) to identify factors that influence prehospital time for EMS events related to motor vehicle collisions (MVCs). While only 19 percent of the United States population resides in rural areas, over half of all traffic fatalities involve rural motor vehicle collisions.
We are proud to announce that SafeTREC researchers and staff co-authored a study for the March 2019 Journal of Transport and Health titled, “How effective are community pedestrian safety training workshops? Short-term findings from a program in California”.
Last week, during the California-wide PedsCount! Summit, we launched Street Story, SafeTREC’s new community engagement platform that allows residents, community groups and agencies to collect information about transportation collisions, near-misses, general hazards and safe locations to travel. In essence, the platform invites users to enter stories about travel experiences.
Crash data is readily available and accessible for public use through government information databases. Crash data typically entails vehicle-related injuries and fatalities that were reported to police authorities. But what about unreported incidents--incidents that only require exchange of contact and insurance information, incidents that may not involve an injury or injuries that might not have been reported?
Low-income groups, people with disabilities, seniors, and communities of color are at higher risk of being injured while walking and biking. Information on the safety needs of these groups is also limited.
Bicycle level of service (LOS) measures are essential tools for transportation agencies to monitor and prioritize improvements to infrastructure for cyclists. While it is apparent that different types of cyclists have varying preferences for the facilities on which they ride, in current research and practice, measures are used that are either insufficiently quantitative and empirical or lack cyclist segmentation.
