Fact Sheet

2021 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Distracted Driving

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2021

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines a distraction-affected crash as one where a driver was determined to be distracted at the time of the crash.

According to the National Safety Council, mobile devices are among the top distractions for drivers nationwide. Studies have found that talking on cell phones, both handheld and hands-free, increases crash risk by about four times relative to baseline driving. Built-in communication technologies, along with hands-free cell phone technologies, draw attention away from driving. The ability to multitask is a...

2021 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Bicycle Safety

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2021

Bicycling is becoming more popular across the country, for commuting, exercise, and leisure. However, in the event of a traffic crash between a motor vehicle and a bicyclist, the bicyclist is the more vulnerable party and more likely to be injured or killed than a motor vehicle occupant. In 2019, there were 846 bicyclists killed in a traffic crash in the United States. In citing concern about the level of bicycle fatalities, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) identified key recommendations for improving safety, including collection of better crash data, increased training for...

2021 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Pedestrian Safety

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2021

Everyone is a pedestrian, whether or not walking is one’s primary mode of travel. As a commute mode, walking is gaining in numbers. Based on the first six months of 2020, the GHSA projects that pedestrian fatalities in the nation will be on pace with 2019 despite large reductions in motor vehicle travel associated with COVID-19. Pedestrian fatalities as a proportion of total motor vehicle deaths increased from 13.0 percent in 2010 to 17.3 percent in 2019. Moreover, pedestrian fatalities increased 46.5 percent from 2010 to 2019 while other traffic deaths increased by 4.9 percent. Increases...

New Release: 2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheets

September 30, 2020
SUBMITTED BY LISA PETERSON
2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheets feature recent data on some of California's most pressing traffic safety issues to help inform future road safety efforts during the pandemic
COVID-19 and Traffic Safety

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a series of public health measures to keep communities safe, like the stay at home order and physical distancing orders affecting operations of schools, restaurants, retail, and other non essential businesses. ...

2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Drug-Involved Driving

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2020

Driving can be impaired by a variety of legal and illegal drugs, substances, and medications. These various substances can impair cognition, attention, coordination, and other brain functions critical to driving safety. Unlike alcohol, the mechanism for absorption, distribution, and elimination of drugs from the body, as well as cognitive and behavioral effects differ greatly.

Analyses from SWITRS presented in this program area refer to drug-involvement and include fatal and serious injuries where law enforcement reported the driver to be under the influence of drugs. Crashes in the...

2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Emergency Medical Services

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2020
There are typically many contributing factors in motor vehicle crashes. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) play a critical role post-crash to reduce fatalities and serious injuries. Recent studies show that an effective emergency trauma care system can improve survival from serious injuries by as much as 25 percent and county-level coordinated systems of trauma care can reduce crash fatalities rates as much as 50 percent.

2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Alcohol-Involved Driving

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2020

While alcohol-impaired driving fatalities have fallen significantly in the last three decades, NHTSA reports that alcohol-impaired driving still comprises a large percentage of traffic injuries and fatalities. On average in 2018, one person died from an alcohol impaired driving crash every 50 minutes. There was a decrease in the number of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities and rate per 100 million VMT in the United States between 2017 and 2018. Analyses from SWITRS presented in this program area refer to alcohol involvement and include fatalities and serious injuries where law enforcement...

2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Aging Road Users

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2020

The older adult population in the United States aged 65 and older is expected to almost double between 2016 and 2060, from 49 million to 95 million. In 2018, there were 6,907 people aged 65 or older killed in a traffic crash in the United States; this accounted for 18.9 percent of all traffic fatalities. To provide context, the overall population aged 65 or older accounted for 14.9 percent of people in the United States and 19.4 percent of all licensed drivers in 2017. California has the largest number of licensed drivers aged 65 or older in the nation with 4,251,349, or 15.9 percent of...

2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Speeding-Related Crashes

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2020
A speeding-related crash is defined as one where a driver is speeding, racing, driving too fast for the conditions, or driving in excess of the posted speed limit. In the United States, in 2018, over one in four (25.7 percent) fatalities involved speeding, a steady decline from a decade ago. Speeding reduces a driver’s ability to steer safely around curves or objects, reduces the amount of time a driver has to react to a dangerous situation, and extends safe stopping distances. Analyses presented in the police traffic services program area refer to speeding-related fatal and serious injuries.

2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Facts: Occupant Protection

Chen, Katherine L.
Tsai, Bor-Wen
Fortin, Garrett
Cooper, Jill F.
2020

Restraint devices such as seat belts are a key element of motor vehicle occupant protection systems. Each year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducts the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) that measures, among many variables, the use of seat belts by occupants age eight and older. The 2019 NOPUS reported that seat belt use was 90.7 percent among front-seat passengers, a slight increase from the 89.6 percent observed in 2018. Additionally, the 2019 survey found that seat belt use increased during both weekday rush hours and non-rush hours. Use...