Road Traffic Safety
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) installed an adaptive signal timing system this past summer in Pima County to improve traffic flow on S.R. 77 (Oracle Road), the primary north-south route connecting Tucson and Oro Valley, which handles about 60,000 vehicles per day.
Thus far,...
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced their top 10 most-cited safety violations list for fiscal year 2018.
The list covers violations that OSHA issued between Oct. 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2018, but the data is preliminary. Patrick Kapust, deputy director of...
San Francisco-based Zendrive, an analytics firm, conducted a study dubbed the 2018 Distracted Driving Snapshot, which surveyed 7.1 billion miles and 4.5 million drivers from December 2017 through February 2018.
The study found that more than 60% of drivers—roughly 69 million—use their phones at...
Image source: NTSB website
Data accumulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and released this week by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has found that of the 38,958 people who died in transportation-related accidents in calendar 2017, 95% or 37,133 were the result of highway...
Image: Florida State University
Innovative traffic safety research from Florida State University (FSU), incorporating a fascinating mix of engineering and psychology, is being deployed on highways to save lives by targeting a deadly problem: wrong-way driving crashes.
Nationwide, wrong-way crashes kill about 350 people a year...
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) last week said it was moving to allow advanced headlights known as “adaptive driving beams” to be used in vehicles on U.S. roads that could help prevent nighttime crashes.
The agency said it was acting in response to a petition filed...
The Mobileye collision-avoidance system was found to be 96% accurate for alerts warning of potential collisions. Photos courtesy of Mobileye.
Imagine that you are a bus driver in today’s urban environment. You are surrounded by rushed and distracted drivers and pedestrians, cyclists riding in your blind spots, delivery trucks stopping suddenly in front of you, and challenging weather resulting in treacherous road conditions. At the same...
There are approximately 212,000 at-grade railroad crossings in the U.S., usually consisting of one or more railroad tracks crossing a public highway. In some cases, and increasingly commonly, there is an additional presence of a multi-use path or trail, which adds a new level of complexity to...
In 2017, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) opened its first Flex Route along U.S. 23 in Washtenaw and Livingston counties. For years, the problems of peak-hour directional traffic, incident management, and corridor operations and safety eluded the department. All short-term solutions...
Intersections offer a challenge to traffic safety professionals across the country because a third of all fatal crashes occur at intersections. This is primarily caused by right-angle crashes that result from a driver failing to recognize the hazard of oncoming traffic or misjudging the distance or...
The Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA), the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 4 announced the start of construction on a new southbound Express Lane on I-680 that will stretch 11 miles from south of Marina...
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) recently announced that according to department data, crashes, injuries and fatalities decreased at 11 roundabouts in the state after they were installed.
PennDOT recently reviewed data for 11 roundabouts on state routes at intersections...
States of emergency have been declared in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia in preparation for Hurricane Florence's arrival, a Category 4 hurricane expected to hit the Atlantic Coast later this week, including evacuation plans and transit cancellations for some.
An evacuation of South...
Gov. Scott Walker announced yesterday that 29 agencies across the state of Wisconsin will receive $15.7 million in funding for Transportation Alternative Program (TAP) projects.
TAP projects are federally funded, smaller scale transportation projects which have a utilitarian purpose which expand...
In Lake County, Ohio, winter weather spells trouble for a stretch of I-90 between S.R. 528 and S.R. 44.
Over a 10-year span, more than 800 winter crashes were recorded along this corridor. On Dec. 8, 2016, an intense snow band that produced massive squalls contributed to a bus crash that led to a...
As part of the Toward Zero Deaths plan for the northern part of the state, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) will begin placing hundreds of roadside reflectors this week along 76 miles of the iconic M-22 route.
The $300,000 project includes more than 1,300 reflectors—called road...
Figure 1. TMA light configurations investigated in the study.
As state departments of transportation (DOTs) shift their attention towards maintenance of existing infrastructure, improving safety in both stationary and mobile work zones is becoming more of a consideration.
One countermeasure to help improve safety in mobile work zones is the truck-mounted...
This week, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) will test out a new technology placed inside the pavement along Brighton Boulevard in Denver to measure the speed of cars traveling over that stretch of road.
This is an example of the agency’s RoadX program, a combination of new methods...
More public transit usage can significantly lessen cities' traffic death rates, according to a recent American Public Transportation Association (APTA) analysis.
Conducted by APTA and advocacy group Vision Zero Network, the analysis showed that metro areas that log more than 40 annual transit...
The U.S is on pace to record close to 40,000 roadway and highway deaths for the third consecutive year, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday by the National Safety Council (NSC).
Based on state-reported statistics, the NSC says approximately 18,720 people died on U.S. roadways...
