Road User Behavior

2017 SWITRS Data Added to Transportation Injury Mapping System

March 21, 2018
SUBMITTED BY LISA PETERSON

The Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS) has been updated with 2017 SWITRS data!

ATP Hex Map graphic

Community Hex Map generated in ATP Maps & Summary Data tool

The Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS) has been developed by SafeTREC's GIS Program team to provide quick, easy and free access to California crash data that has been geo-coded to make it easy to map out crashes via a variety of...

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month

March 7, 2018
SUBMITTED BY LISA PETERSON
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month

Distracted driving is deadly and dangerous. In 2015 alone, 3,477 people were killed and 391,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involvingU Drive Campaign distracted drivers. In an effort to raise awareness on the consequences of texting and driving, and how to prevent this dangerous behavior, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will be launching...

Visualizing Teen Driver Safety Needs: SafeTREC researchers present at 2017 GIS Day

November 10, 2017

Teen Heat Map Presentation

State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, with staff from the California Department of Education, California Office of Traffic Safety and SafeTREC.

On November 2, 2017, SafeTREC co-director Jill Cooper and researchers SangHyouk Oum and Liwei Fu presented SafeTREC’s latest data and mapping analysis tool, the Teen Safety Heat Map at the 2017 Geographic Information Systems...

SafeTREC's CA Teen Driver Heat Map featured in CDE Driver Education Update

January 26, 2018
SUBMITTED BY LISA PETERSON

The California Young Driver Heat Map (Teen Safety Heat Map), a new geographic information system (GIS) resource developed by SafeTREC in partnership with the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) was recently highlighted in the Winter, 2017-2018 issue of the California Department of Education's CDE Driver Education Update. Teen Safety Heat Map Article

This data and mapping analysis tool was developed...

New Campaign from Traffic Safety and Law Enforcement Launches: DUI Doesn't Mean Just Booze

December 29, 2017
SUBMITTED BY LISA PETERSON

Drug impaired driving is a problem on California highways. This includes drivers under the influence of prescribed medications, illicit drugs, over-the-counter medications or marijuana. And just like drunk driving, driving under the influence of drugs is illegal.

It is also dangerous and poses a threat to the driver, vehicle passengers, and other users on the road. Nearly one in four weekend...

National Teen Driver Safety Week October 15 - 21

October 16, 2017

Did you know that car crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers, ahead of all other types of injury, disease, or violence? To shed light on this epidemic and reduce the number of lives lost, National Teen Driver Safety Week will be held this week from October 15 - 21.

NHTSA Teen Driver Safety GraphicThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that nationwide in...

Geocoding Police Collision Report Data from California: A Comprehensive Approach

Bigham, John M.
Rice, Thomas M.
Pande, Swati
Lee, Junhak
Park, Shin Hyoung
Gutierrez, Nicolas
Ragland, David R.
2009

Background

Collision geocoding is the process of assigning geographic descriptors, usually latitude and longitude coordinates, to a traffic collision record. On California police reports, relative collision location is recorded using a highway postmile marker or a street intersection. The objective of this study was to create a geocoded database of all police-reported, fatal and severe injury collisions in the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) for years 1997-2006 for use by public agencies.

Results

Geocoding was completed with a multi-step...

The Inclusion of Adult Vehicle Occupants in Matched Cohort Studies of Child Restraint Effectiveness: A Study of Potential Bias

Rice, Thomas M.
Anderson, Craig L.
2010

Objective: To determine whether either the inclusion of adults in matched cohort studies of passenger vehicle occupants or modification of age effects by collision severity biases child restraint risk ratios biases estimate of child restraint effectiveness.

Methods: Monte Carlo data simulations were conducted to represent 10,000 collision-involved vehicles carrying a mix of children and adults. The effects of age category, adult seat belt use, child seat belt use, and child safety seat use were set to known values. Age was a modifier of the adult and child seat belt risk ratios and...

Bicycle Infrastructure that Extends beyond the Door: Examining Investments in Bicycle-oriented Design through a Qualitative Survey of Commercial Building Owners and Tenants

Orrick, Phyllis
Frick, Karen Trapenberg
Ragland, David R.
2011

This paper presents the results of a qualitative survey of commercial owners, managers, and occupants in the City of Berkeley who have invested in on-site bicycle facilities such as secure parking, showers, changing rooms, and clothing lockers, what we are calling “bicycle-oriented design” (BOD). The sites represent a selection of building types common in the commercial building stock in U.S. cities. The research is designed to answer three questions about the use of BOD: (1) what were motivations behind the decision to invest in BOD (2) what are the challenges and rewards for...

Physical Environments Influencing Bicyclists’ Perception of Comfort on Separated and On-Street Bicycle Facilities

Li, Zhibin
Wang, Wei
Liu, Pan
Ragland, David R.
2012

This study investigates the impacts of physical environments on bicyclists’ perceptions of comfort on separated and on-street bicycle facilities. Based on a field investigation conducted in Nanjing, China, we find that physical environmental factors significantly influencing bicyclists’ perception of comfort on the two types of facility. Cyclists’ comfort is mainly influenced by the road geometry and surrounding conditions on physically separated paths while they pay attention to the effective riding space and traffic situations on on-street bicycle lanes.