The High Risk of “Low” Speed Roads
I came across this interesting graph in a new report from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, with the lengthy title “Guidance for Implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan Volume 23: A Guide for Reducing Speeding-Related Crashes.”
I was struck by the substantial percentage (the second-highest of all road forms) of speed-related fatalities on “low speed,” non-interstate roads. I am not sure what the percentage of pedestrian fatalities were, nor the speeds of impact involved (something would be far from exact in any case), nor do I (or anyone, really) know the exact differences in exposure for driving on local roads versus high-speed highways.
But I took the figure as a sign of what sort of issues were at stake in things like the recently mentioned Prospect Park West Road Diet (in Brooklyn), which now seems to be moving forward.
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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 7:19 am and is filed under Roads, Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 20th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I’d check into the rate of fatality for each facility. If 29% of all traffic is on low speed non-interstates, than 29% if all fatalities is perhaps not so high of a number.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
From no more information than what’s in this chart, my first thought is that the results make sense. Speeding in low-speed environments is probably the same as speeding in complex environments, i.e. roads with a lot of cross traffic, driveway entrances, sidewalks, etc.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
These are both valid points. I suppose my interest was less about the exposure rate per se than in the qualitative aspect; i.e., that these low speed, presumably safer roads are home to such a large portion of the fatalities related to speeding (which makes me wonder if enforcement efforts shouldn’t be shifted a bit towards these roads, away from Interstate highways and the like).
April 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Federal Highway Adminstration states there are a total of 4 million miles of roads in the U.S. with only 47,000 of them being Interstate. From a law enforcement perspective, the interstates are a better use of resources to reduce the fatality rate.
To make a significant impact on the remainder of the roads would require a massive increase in law enforcement resources to achieve reasonable coverage.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Using Bob’s numbers, don’t we get 0.037 fatalities per mile on interstates and 0.002 fatalities per mile on non-interstates? That leads to the opposite conclusion.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we found lower accident rates on interstates; but when you do get an accident there, ya die!
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:37 am
Not so sure about speed upping the fatality rate. I mean, seriously, what percentage of driving is done below 55mph on the interstate. It seems, just like the economy, slow kills.