Roadway Safety
From RUCS Wiki
Case Study: Roadway Safety
In the SACOG region, 13% of the population lives in rural areas1. However, a disproportionate number of collision fatalities occur in rural areas. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2006, 37% of all California traffic fatalities occurred in rural areas, and the rural accident fatality rate is 16 deaths per 100,000 people, while the urban rate is 9.3 deaths per 100,000 people. Of course, traffic fatalities are not the only roadway safety concern in rural areas. Despite the universal “rural” classification, different areas of the less urbanized SACOG region have different community characteristics, population densities, economies, and roadway users, which create different roadway safety concerns. Roadway safety is a large and complex topic, and this case study by no means attempts to address all of the rural road safety issues; rather, it attempts to highlight some of the most pervasive roadway safety concerns.
Rural areas are experiencing tremendous growth. By 2035, the SACOG region’s rural population is expected to increase by 178%, while urban areas will grow by only 46%. Where once rural roads were used mainly to transport goods to market or to move farm machinery from location to location, rural roads now must accommodate commute and leisure trips that may clash with current transportation patterns2. This influx of nontraditional traffic presents a major safety concern for rural road users.
Safety Concerns for Drivers
Although rural driving is commonly thought of as safer than urban driving, rural drivers face a myriad of challenges every time they take to the road. Despite having fewer cars, rural roadways present certain challenging safety conditions that make them more dangerous than urban roads. Being aware of significant rural road safety issues can help prevent accidents and lower the accident fatality rate.
- Speeding: Rural roads generally have higher speed limits than urban roads. Speeding motorists are a safety concern because higher speeds translates into more, and more severe, accidents. In addition, rural roadways accommodate a wide variety of vehicles, including large trucks, farm machinery, and passenger vehicles, that all move at varying speeds. Varying and higher speeds combine to make speeding the leading cause of collisions in the SACOG region’s rural areas; 30% of all accidents and 15% of fatal accidents are caused by speeding3.
- Alcohol Use: Another high risk behavior that disproportionately affects rural areas is alcohol use; nearly 10% of all SACOG region rural accidents involve alcohol. Alcohol use slows reaction times, impairs judgment, and grossly increases the severity of accidents. In fatal and severe injury accidents, alcohol was involved in 34% and 26% respectively, but less than 9% for property damage only and slight injury accidents (see figure 1). As expected, alcohol related accidents increase during the weekend with 17% of Saturday and 19% of Sunday crashes involving alcohol.
- Seat Belt Use: Compared to their urban counterparts, rural motorists are less likely to wear seatbelts and therefore more likely to be involved in a serious accident. In the SACOG region (excluding Sacramento County), seat belt use in fatal and severe injury accidents was well above the national average, with 61% of victims using seat belts; however, this number is still lower than Sacramento County, in which victims used seat belts 68% of the time. Seat belts can reduce the risk of death or serious injury by 45%-60%4.
- Head On Collisions: Head on collisions are the most dangerous type of collision with another motor vehicle. In the SACOG region’s rural areas, 32% of fatal accidents are caused by head on collisions, and 30% of head ons are caused by driving on the wrong side of the road. Clearly, preventing motorists from driving on the wrong side of the road is an important step in reducing head on collisions. Installing “WRONG WAY” signs or using centerline rumble strips can help keep drivers on the right side of the road and prevent serious head on collisions from occurring.
- Fixed Objects: Surprisingly, fixed object collisions cause more fatal and severe injury accidents than collisions with other motor vehicles. Fixed object crashes account for 40% of fatal and severe injury accidents in the SACOG region’s rural areas, while collisions with another motor vehicle account for 36%. Speeding and other high risk behaviors contribute to the high percentage of fatal accidents caused by collisions with fixed objects.
- Lighting: It is often costly and impractical to install street lights along rural roads with very low traffic volumes. However, unlit roadways are exceptionally dangerous. In the SACOG region, 30% of rural fatal collisions and 34% of rural fixed object collisions occur at night on unlit roads. At night when streetlights are present, the percentage of fixed object collisions drops to only 6%. As noted above, fixed object crashes represent a large percentage of fatal crashes, so installing street lights along high risk roads can drastically improve safety.
Safety Concerns for Pedestrians and Bicyclists
- Speed: In addition to a lack of pedestrian infrastructure, rural pedestrians are subjected to high-speed traffic, which directly affects the likelihood of a fatal accident. A pedestrian’s chance of death if hit by a motor vehicle increases dramatically as speed increases (see figure 2 above)5. Many rural roads have speeds in excess of 40 MPH and no buffer between traffic and pedestrians, which presents a serious safety concern.
- Pedestrian Awareness: In the SACOG region, 37% of rural pedestrian accidents are caused by a pedestrian violation. Many additional accidents are caused by pedestrians putting themselves in high risk situations. 24% of pedestrian accidents occur at night on unlit roads. 53% of pedestrian accidents occur when the pedestrian is walking in the road or on the road shoulder. Without the pedestrian infrastructure found in urban areas, these types of situations can be very dangerous and pedestrians should take extreme caution when confronted with them.
- Bicyclist Awareness: Because many rural roads have narrow shoulders, bicyclists must be aware of their surroundings. In the SACOG region’s rural areas, the most common cause of bicycle/motorist accidents is improper turning, accounting for 21% of all accidents. Another major risk factor is bicycling at night on unlit roads. Nearly half of all fatal bicycle accidents occur at night in the absence of street lights. When riding at night, bicyclists should make sure to use a headlight, taillight, and reflectors to alert motorists to their presence.
Spotlight on Yuba County: Spenceville Road Improvement
Project Overview
Spenceville Road is a rural major collector running through rural Wheatland that hosts an average daily traffic of 1950 vehicles. Since the expansion of Spenceville Road in Northeast Wheatland was constructed to access Beale Air Force Base, an increase in accidents has been seen at the road’s intersection with Camp Far West Road. The two roads meet at a sharp curve (See Figure 3 below), making it hard for drivers to successfully navigate the intersection at high speeds. The road has a 55 MPH speed limit, but recommends a 35 MPH speed around the curve; unfortunately some drivers fail to reduce their speed or cannot do so quickly enough, and accidents occur.
From July 1, 2000 to January 1, 2007, fourteen accidents occurred at the intersection. Most (9) were property damage only accidents, but there were 5 injury accidents as well. The primary cause of collisions is vehicles entering and exiting the sharp curve at an unsafe speed. A second cause is failure to yield right-of-way, which can be attributed to poor sight distance at the intersection (See Figure 3).
In light of these unsafe conditions, roadway realignment and a new left-turn lane are in store for this intersection. A left-turn lane will be added to accommodate southbound traffic on Spenceville Road, while realignment will increase the turn radius, allowing drivers to navigate the curve at higher speeds. With these improvements, under normal circumstances drivers are less likely to lose control. The project is being funded by a competitive federal program called the High Risk Rural Roads Program. The program specifically targets rural roads in need of safety upgrades.
Project Funding: High Risk Rural Roads (HR3) Program
Recognizing the disproportionate number of fatal accidents in rural areas, the federal government authorized the High Risk Rural Roads Program. The HR3 Program is a component of the Federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and aims to reduce rural collision fatalities by funding projects that address rural roadway safety issues. Under current legislation, the program provides $8.25 million per year to California projects aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of collisions on rural roads. Projects may be funded up to $900,000 and are covered 90% by federal funds with a 10% matching requirement. Yuba County received $355,500 for its road safety improvement on Spenceville Road.
Projects are ranked according to a “Safety Index” calculated by Caltrans. To be competitive, projects should provide detailed data regarding the frequency and severity of collisions, including roadway characteristics, collision type, and a clear explanation of how the project will improve roadway safety. The above information is used to calculate the final “Safety Index,” which is based on collision costs before improvement, collision costs after improvement, and total project cost. For more information about the HR3 Program, please visit http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/LocalPrograms/HR3/apply.htm
Innovations and Opportunities
As the SACOG region’s rural areas continue to grow, keeping our rural roadways safe will become even more challenging. Upgrading rural roads to accommodate new levels of motorized traffic will be accompanied by the need to outfit roads with bicyclist and pedestrian infrastructure. Avoiding conflict between road users and combating high risk behaviors like speeding and alcohol use will be vital to ensuring the safety of all rural roadway users. Many innovations and opportunities exist to make keeping our rural roadways safe a top priority.
Best Practices for Rural Roadway Safety6
Though safety improvements, like widening lanes or grade separations, are often desirable, some projects are financially or spatially impossible in rural areas. The following best practices outline some cost-effective alternatives that can dramatically increase safety on rural roadways.
Shoulder and Centerline Rumble Strips—Rumble strips provide an audible and tactile warning to motorists when they drift off the road or into oncoming traffic. Rumble strips can be extremely effective on narrow rural roadways with limited shoulder width and lane separation, especially when widening the road is too costly or time consuming. Installing rumble strips can reduce run-off-road accidents by up to 70%!
Passing Lane Improvements—When driving behind slow moving vehicles on rural roadways, motorists may become impatient and pass when it is not safe to do so. Constructing short stretches of road with passing lanes, climbing lanes, or turnouts allows drivers to pass other vehicles safely and can decrease the number of head on collisions caused by unsafe passing. Like rumble strips, passing lanes can be used when widening an entire road is impractical. Adding passing lanes can reduce accidents by 25%, short four-lane sections by 35%, and turnouts by 30%.
Intersection Control Beacons—Installing traffic signals at every rural intersection is neither practical nor advisable. In fact, installing traffic signals on high-speed roads can be a safety hazard because stopping suddenly at high speeds is very dangerous. However, some high risk rural intersections can benefit from flashing beacons. These devices use flashing red and yellow lights to alert drivers to cross traffic at intersections. Traffic control beacons can reduce collisions by up to 43%. Similarly, pedestrian-activated flashing beacons can keep pedestrians safe when they cross rural roads.
Obstacle Removal—As noted in this case study, fixed object crashes cause many fatal collisions in rural areas each year. Instituting a “clear zone” policy that removes obstacles like trees, poles, steep slopes, and drainage structures can help reduce the severity of run-off-road crashes. Break-away supports are also particularly useful in reducing the severity of fixed object and run-off-road collisions. Using break-away supports allows road signs to collapse when stuck by a vehicle but stand up to wind and everyday exposure to the elements.
Special Event Traffic Management—Higher traffic volumes that accompany special events can be trying for rural roads. Traffic management practices like providing adequate signage, coordinating event schedules, and managing left turns can help reduce the strain on rural roadways and increase safety. Partnering with local groups and radio stations to provide parking/shuttles and traffic updates are excellent traffic management practices as well. Many special events include alcohol consumption, so police officer presence can serve the dual purpose of traffic management and drunk driving prevention.
Partners for Rural Traffic Safety Action Kit Guide
This publication, a joint effort between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Rural Health Association (NRHA), is designed to educate rural community leaders on how to conduct a seatbelt use campaign, measure its success, and provide a framework for future safety campaigns. The publication includes detailed information for every step of the campaign process, beginning with selecting leadership and identifying potential community partners and ending with campaign plans and schedules for a variety of different audiences. Pilot studies conducted in 1997 and 1998 found that communities experienced significant gains in seat belt use after the campaign. Most communities saw increases of at least 5% and four communities increased seat belt use by over 15%! For more information about this program please visit http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/airbags/ruralsafety/index.html.
Funding Sources
SACOG member agencies stand to be excellent contenders for HR3 and other program funds, and many local agencies have already received funding for their rural road safety projects. Although many programs can be quite competitive, SACOG hopes its technical and data collection assistance will help bolster member agency applications and bring home more funds to complete these valuable safety improvements.
Rural Safety Innovation Program (RSIP)
Funds are made available through the DOT’s Delta Region Transportation Development Program and Intelligent Transportation Systems Program to projects that help reduce crashes on dangerous rural roads. $14.7 million was allocated in FY 2008. Projects may be funded from $200,000-$2,000,000 and are covered 80% by federal funds with a 20% matching requirement.
Projects may be submitted from any entity that is responsible for maintaining and upgrading rural roads. Examples of suitable projects include those that prevent roadway departure crashes, intersection and pedestrian crashes, and speeding related crashes.
Competitive applications will have active High Risk Rural Road and Highway Safety Programs that complement the proposed project. In addition, projects should show need for safety improvements, costs and benefits of improvement, and interest in using market ready technologies (including ITS) to improve roadway safety. In 2008, California DOT received $1.6 million for a coordinated speed management in work zones program. Additionally, El Dorado County received $304,000 for an ITS intersection safety upgrade. For more information about the RSIP, please visit http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/local_program/.
Highways for LIFE Pilot Program7
Highways for LIFE is a discretionary program that provides funding for projects with the purpose of advancing Longer-lasting highway infrastructure using Innovations to accomplish the Fast construction of Efficient and safe highways and bridges. Priority will be given to projects that address Highways for LIFE performance standards for quality, safety and speed of construction; deliver and deploy innovative technologies, manufacturing processes, financing, contracting, and performance measures; include innovation that will lead to change in the administration of the State's transportation program; and are or will be ready for construction within 1 year of approval of the project proposal. For more information about Highways for LIFE please visit http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/hfl/.
State and Community Highway Safety Grants
This program is intended to assist states and communities in the development and implementation of highway safety programs designed to reduce traffic crashes, deaths, injuries, and property damage. Funds can be spent on the following nine national priority areas: alcohol countermeasures, occupant protection, police traffic services (e.g. enforcement), emergency medical services, traffic records, motorcycle safety, pedestrian and bicycle safety, non-construction aspects of roadway safety, and speed control.
Occupant Protection Incentive Grants
This program provides incentive grants to encourage states to adopt and implement effective programs to reduce highway deaths and injuries resulting from individuals riding unrestrained or improperly restrained in motor vehicles. A state is eligible for an incentive grant if it satisfies four of the following six criteria: A law requiring safety belt use by passengers in all seating positions, a primary enforcement safety belt law, minimum fines or points for violations of safety belt and child restraint laws, a statewide special enforcement program for occupant protection, a statewide child passenger protection education program, or a child passenger protection law.
Safety Belt Performance Grants
This program encourages states with secondary enforcement of safety belt law to enact and enforce laws requiring the use of safety belts.States that have enacted and are enforcing a primary belt law receive a one-time grant. States that have achieved an 85% or higher safety belt usage rate for two consecutive years beginning in FY 2006 receive a similar one-time apportionment. States with older primary belt laws receive a one-time grant.
State Traffic Safety Information System Improvement Grants
The purpose of this grant program is to encourage states to improve the timeliness, accuracy, completeness, uniformity, integration and accessibility of their state safety information and to encourage linkage of data systems and improve the compatibility of state and national data. To receive grant funds, a state must certify that it has adopted and uses model data elements identified by the Secretary or that it will use grant funds toward adopting and using the maximum number of such model data elements as soon as practicable.
Alcohol-Impaired Driving Countermeasures Incentive Grants
This program provides incentive grants to states that implement effective programs to reduce traffic safety problems resulting from impaired driving. To be eligible, a state must satisfy a performance criteria (by having an alcohol-related fatality rate of .05 or below per 100 million vehicle miles of travel [VMT]) or satisfy five programmatic eligibility criteria. The programmatic criteria are as follows: checkpoint or saturation patrol program, prosecution or adjudication outreach program, BAC testing program, high risk driver program, program for effective alcohol rehabilitation or DWI courts, underage drinking program, administrative license revocation law, and self-sustaining impaired driving program
Child Safety and Child Booster Seat Incentive Grants
The purpose of this grant program is to encourage states to enact and enforce booster seat laws. To be eligible, a state must have a law requiring children too large for a child safety seat to be secured in a restraint that meets Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for children 50 pounds and above. Not more than half of the funding must be used to purchase and distribute child restraints to low income families. The remaining funds can be used for child passenger safety training, enforcement of child restraint laws and education programs about the proper use and installation of child restraints.
For more information about the SAFETEA-LU grants listed above please visit http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/index.htm
Footnotes
Historically, rural areas were made up primarily of agricultural lands. Today, in addition to agricultural lands, rural areas often include other land uses such as burgeoning subdivisions on the urban fringe or entertainment venues (casinos, theme parks, etc). The Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) definition of rural areas refers to any unincorporated area. The SACOG definition is based on census geographies and generally refers to those areas that do not contain any urban areas or urban clusters. However, in some cases, where an urban cluster was seen as exceedingly disparate from any other urban area, or it did not intersect a jurisdiction as a part of the cluster, it was deemed rural.
http://www.tsc.berkeley.edu/newsletter/summer04/Frontpage.html
SACOG region rural collision statistics from SWITRS include rural areas in El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba Counties. “Rural areas” refer to unincorporated areas and incorporated areas with population <2500. For Sacramento County collision statistics, incorporated areas with population >2500 were used to define “urban areas.” Unless explicitly stated, all SWITRS collision statistics reflect a five-year period from 2002-2006. To see how statistics used in this paper were calculated, refer to Attachment 1: Derivations of Collision Statistics.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/airbags/ruralsafety/introduc.html
FHWA. Transportation Planner’s Safety Desk Reference. “Pedestrian Collisions.” III-9. Jan. 2007.
NCHRP. “Accident Mitigation Guide for Congested Rural Two-Lane Highways.” Report 440. All statistics in the best practices section were taken from this report.
The Highways for LIFE program and the programs listed below are not specifically designated for rural roads, but rural roads may compete with urban roads for funding.
