Road User Behavior

California Traffic Safety Survey 2021

Ewald, Katrin
Wasserman, Lisa
2021

The 2021 California Traffic Safety Study was conducted with an online panel of California drivers, as in the prior year of data collection. While in previous years, data was collected via in-person intercepts, the 2020 wave transitioned to an online, self-administered survey, a mode that was continued in 2021 to avoid in-person contact in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This report describes the findings of the 2021 Traffic Safety data, with a comparison to previous years of data, which include opinions on traffic safety, distracted driving, bicycle and pedestrian interactions, and...

Selected Research on Road Diets

Elijah Wade
Tsai, Bor-Wen
2021
Pedestrian and bicyclist injury and mortality is a common occurrence in California. Data from the Transportation Injury Mapping System found that serious injuries among bicyclists and pedestrians increased between 2017-2019, with 3,174 recorded in 2017 and a peak of 3,495 serious injuries in 2019. Along with serious injuries, there has also been an increase in mortality among these active transportation options reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, which recorded 940 fatalities in 2017, and an increase to 972 by the end of 2019.

One of the strategies that has...

Speed Management Workshops Planned in California

March 23, 2021

Original post authored by Leah Shahum appeared March 23, 2021 on the Vision Zero Network

Communities Embrace Safe Speeds, Key to Safe System Approach

 safe street design, safe speed limits and speed safety cameras

We are pleased to announce that three California communities have been...

New Publication: Evaluating the impact of socio-economic contributing factors of cities in California on their traffic safety condition

January 20, 2021
New paper highlights how socio-economic characteristics of a specific area influence traffic safety

Former SafeTREC graduate student researcher and current postdoctoral researcher at the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics (MITL) Amir M. Amiri has co-authored a new publication, "Evaluating the impact of socio-economic contributing factors of cities in California on their traffic safety condition" with researchers Koorosh Naderi, Jill F. Cooper, and Navid Nadimi in the Journal of Transport & Health.

Abstract Introduction

Careful consideration of the factors that...

New Release: 2020 SafeTREC Traffic Safety Fact Sheets

September 30, 2020
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...

New article in the ITE Journal: The Transportation Safety Pandemic

September 4, 2020
"The good news is we already have the vaccine for the transportation safety pandemic. We just must choose to use it."

How can we apply the critical lessons we are learning from the COVID19 pandemic to change our thinking and approach to transportation safety? In the Cover of the September issue of the ITE JournalSeptember issue of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Journal, co-authors...

Commercial vehicles, fatigue, parking and safety

Gosselin, Katherine
2020
For commercial drivers, operator fatigue and parking in undesignated areas can result in dangerous collisions. Exacerbating this issue is a lack of freight truck parking, making it difficult for truck operators to find a safe spot when in need of rest. For bicyclists and pedestrians, loading and unloading commercial vehicles in downtowns also present hazards. Increasing the availability of legal truck parking could improve safety for all road users.

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...