Motorized Vehicle Safety

Highlights of SafeTREC at TRB Annual Meeting 2023

February 8, 2023

This year SafeTREC faculty, staff and graduate students joined transportation professionals from around the world for the Transportation Research Board 102nd Annual Meeting from January 8-12, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Our team had the opportunity to participate in various events, workshops and activities, connect with alum, and present some of our latest transportation safety research on the Safe System approach, automated vehicle safety, bicycle network connectivity, transportation equity, and more. Enjoy...

SafeTREC at the 2023 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting

December 12, 2022

UC Berkeley SafeTREC researchers, faculty and graduate students are excited to participate in the upcoming Transportation Research Board (TRB) 102nd Annual Meeting, held in person this year January 8–12, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Sessions and workshops will focus on the spotlight theme for the 2023 meeting: Rejuvenation Out of Disruption: Envisioning a Transportation System for a Dynamic Future. The full 2023 program, including details on all sessions and workshops, is available now via the...

Course Announcement: Spring 2023 Traffic Safety and Injury Control

November 14, 2022

People walking in crosswalk with traffic passing with course title, time and date overlaid

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Course Description:

Injuries from traffic crashes are a major cause of death and disability in the United States and around the world....

New Release: 2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheets

September 12, 2022
2022 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

UC Berkeley SafeTREC is excited to announce the release of the 2022 series of Traffic Safety Fact Sheets, which feature traffic safety data and trends at the national and state level on a variety of road safety topics. This series also highlights the Safe System approach to road safety, which the United States Department of Transportation...

2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Drug-Involved Driving

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2022
The use of cannabis, prescription drugs, and other drugs are increasingly prominent on roadways in the United States, where 25.3 percent of the nation’s 38,824 fatalities in 2020 were related to drug-involved driving. Driving can be impaired by a variety of legal and illegal drugs, substances, and medications. The effect of specific drugs on behavior and driving skills vary considerably depending on how they act in the brain and are metabolized. They can slow reaction time, decrease coordination, increase aggressive and reckless driving, impair cognitive function, or cause drowsiness. All of...

2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Speed-Related Crashes

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2022
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 2020, over one in four (29.0 percent) fatalities involved speeding, a rate that increased after plateauing in the late 2010s, following a decline earlier in the decade. 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...

2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Occupant Protection

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2022
Restraint devices such as seat belts are a key element of motor vehicle occupant protection systems. Each year, NHTSA conducts the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) that measures, among many variables, the daytime use of seat belts by occupants age eight and older. The 2020 NOPUS reported that seat belt use was 90.3 percent among front-seat passengers, a slight decrease from the 90.7 percent observed in 2018. This change, along with the changes in subsets such as time of day or day of the week, was not statistically significant.

The United States Department of...

2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Distracted Driving

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2022
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines distracted driving as activities that divert attention away from safe driving. This may include talking on the phone, texting, eating or drinking, manipulating audio systems, etc. According to the National Safety Council, cell phones remain a top distraction because of the length of time they are used by drivers on a daily basis.

The United States Department of Transportation uses the Safe System Approach to work towards zero roadway fatalities and serious injuries. The Safe System Approach recognizes that people...

2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheet: Alcohol-Impaired Driving

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2022
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 2020, someone died from an alcohol-impaired driving crash every 45 minutes. There was an increase in the number of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities and rate per 100 million Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) in the United States between 2019 and 2020.

The United States Department of Transportation uses the Safe System Approach to work towards zero roadway...