Road User Behavior

Course Announcement: Fall 2023 Public Health Injury Prevention and Control

July 26, 2023
Submitted by Lisa Peterson

Course flyer banner showing images of EMT responding to a car crash, a firearm with bullets, and a crosswalk with a crashed bicycle and helmet

Download Course PDF COURSE OVERVIEW Injury is the leading cause of death for ages 1- 44, and the leading cause of years of potential life lost up to...

2022 Statewide Traffic Safety Survey Summary

Cooper, Jill F.
2022

2022 marked the thirteenth year of the Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) California’s Annual Traffic Safety Study. The study is intended to create a better understanding of trends in traffic safety behaviors and help focus traffic safety programs, which include enforcement efforts along with public education campaigns to ensure they are effective in targeting areas with disproportionate traffic safety injuries. The survey is sponsored by the OTS while being administered by Ewald and Wasserman Research Consultants along with University of California Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and...

California Traffic Safety Survey 2023: Speeding and aggressive driving, distracted driving, and drunk driving biggest safety concerns

July 3, 2023
Submitted by Lisa Peterson

UC Berkeley SafeTREC is excited to release the 2023 California Traffic Safety Survey led by Ewald & Wasserman Research Consultants (E&W). This study was conducted on behalf of the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) and the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) at the University of California, Berkeley.

Speeding and...

California Traffic Safety Survey 2023

Ewald, Katrin
Wasserman, Lisa
2023

Similar to the survey waves since 2020, the 2023 California Traffic Safety Public Opinion Study was conducted by Ewald & Wasserman Research (E&W) on behalf of the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) and the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center of UC Berkeley (SafeTREC), with an online self-administered survey. Survey panelists were provided through Marketing Services Group, a commercial sample and panel vendor.

The eligibility criteria for participating in the study were possessing a valid California driver’s license and being 18 years or older. Eligible...

2022 California Active Transportation Bills Go into Effect

February 27, 2023
Submitted by Kristen Leckie
With the start of the new year, California saw a number of active transportation bills go into effect. You can find out what bills are now live below!

Photo of the front of the State Capitol in Sacramento, it's a white building with columns and a large dome in the middle of the roof with pine trees on either side of the building.

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Tragic trend in hit-and-run fatalities

February 15, 2023
Submitted by Lisa Peterson

On February 9, 2023, SafeTREC Researcher Julia Griswold discussed the tragic trend of hit-and-run fatalities for a CBS Sacramento news story about a hit-and-runVideo still of the NHTSA 2020 hit-and-run statistics in Modesto, California with correspondent Ashley Sharp. "It...

New Release: 2022 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheets

September 12, 2022
Submitted by Lisa Peterson
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: Motorcycle Safety

Katherine L. Chen
Bor-Wen Tsai
Garrett Fortin
Jill F. Cooper
2022

Crashes involving motorcycles are a major traffic safety concern in the United States. Since motorcyclists are susceptible to injury during crashes, they comprise a disproportionate share of all injured and killed vehicle occupants. In 2020, motorcyclists comprised 14.4 percent of all traffic deaths in the US.

The primary countermeasures used to address this problem include motorcycle helmet laws and other helmet-oriented programs, rider training and licensing programs, vehicle enhancements, including anti-lock braking technology, rider conspicuity programs, campaigns to increase...

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...