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Rural Highway Safety 
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September 2007 – Vol. 1, No. 2
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Rural Safety News is an electronic newsletter of the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS) at the University of Minnesota. Rural Safety News brings you the latest research and resources concerning rural safety. In this issue:
Summer Institute explores community health aspects of rural transportation safety
Anthony Kane Leading state and national transportation officials, researchers, policymakers, and professionals explored the connections between rural transportation safety and community health during the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety’s annual Summer Institute, held at the University of Vermont (UVM) in Burlington on July 30 and 31, 2007. Presentations and the ensuing discussion incorporated a broad range of ideas, which converged around a common desire to drastically reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries due to crashes on rural roads. Nationally, about 60 percent of traffic fatalities are rural, the majority of which occur on two-lane roads. The overall number of U.S. traffic fatalities has remained steady at more than 42,000 annually. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study in 2002, health costs each year due to motor vehicle crashes have been estimated at $230 billion, or 2.3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. "Think about it. They’re your friends, they’re your co-workers, cousins, relatives—someone’s going to be touched by it," said keynote speaker Anthony Kane, engineering and technical services director with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). "We need to get the political will and leadership to address it. Health care costs can be a vehicle to do it." This was the second meeting of an annual Summer Institute held by the University of Minnesota's Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS). The two-day gathering, hosted this year in cooperation with the new UVM Transportation Center and the New England Transportation Institute (NETI), is aimed at sharing information, setting research priorities, and developing strategies for improving rural transportation safety. CERS, which was established by the 2005 federal transportation act, is a program led by Lee Munnich of the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, in cooperation with the Center for Transportation Studies, and sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration. Other partners include NETI and the School of Information Systems and Technology at Claremont Graduate University. Panel discussions at the Summer Institute addressed rural driving behavior, technological solutions for improving rural safety and community health, a community perspective on transportation, health, and safety, and innovative national policies for safety and health. CTS director Robert Johns served as master of ceremonies and also facilitated a free-flowing conversation among participants discussing rural transportation safety as a public health issue. Speakers representing the University of Minnesota included Thomas Horan, CERS research director and visiting scholar at the Humphrey Institute, who shared the latest CERS research into the public health aspects of rural transportation safety; Max Donath, director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Institute, who described human-centered technologies for reducing fatalities and life-changing crashes; and Mick Rakauskas, a research fellow with the HumanFIRST Program at the ITS Institute, who discussed attitudes and behaviors associated with fatal-crash risk in rural areas. Related resources:  Researchers mapping fatality data to better understand the risks of rural roads
In an effort to prevent traffic fatalities and improve emergency response, CERS researchers are combining fatality data with new technology to better understand the risks of rural roads. CERS research director Thomas Horan and research associate Benjamin Schooley presented their findings from current research efforts during the 2007 CERS Summer Institute. Their research, using Minnesota and Vermont as examples, focuses on mapping fatalities, home zip codes, and emergency response in search of significant patterns. The research also analyzes traffic deaths during different seasons. Horan, noting the more than 40,000 traffic–related fatalities each year in the United States, pointed out that 60 percent of those occur on rural roads. Only two in 10 Americans, however, live in rural areas. In Minnesota, 68 percent of crash fatalities occur on rural roads compared to Vermont’s 87 percent. One of the biggest findings, Horan said, was the significant disparity between the rural and urban drivers involved in fatalities on rural roads. About 54 percent of drivers in the country involved in fatal rural crashes had a home address with an urban zip code. In Vermont, the number is much higher: 85 percent of its 87 traffic deaths involved urban drivers. Minnesota’s percentage was lower, with 40 percent reporting an urban zip code. Horan and Schooley used home zip codes and the location of deaths to map out the traveling distance of drivers. "Just because [a fatality is] on a rural road doesn’t mean it’s a rural driver," Horan said. "It may occur in a rural area, but it’s not just a rural problem." Their research mapped out fatalities during different times of the year and found a large increase during the summer months. In Minnesota, fatalities spiked 43 percent and in Vermont, 31 percent. For example, Horan said in the Brainerd, Minnesota, lakes area, 70 percent of traffic deaths there occur during five summer weekends, which include the major holidays. "It struck me that all days weren’t the same in rural cities," he said. Their research also analyzed response time in rural areas versus urban areas to highlight disparities in care. Crash victims are five to seven times more likely to die from their injuries if they don’t arrive at a trauma center in the first half–hour. In Vermont, 100 percent of emergency response times taking longer than 20 minutes occurred in rural areas, compared to 85 percent in Minnesota. Horan and Schooley hope to continue their research by looking further into the medical response portion of the data to help rural emergency personnel improve timeliness and quality of service. They plan to use data from the Mayo Clinic and OnStar car programs for this part of the research. They also plan to make their data more consumer-friendly by providing the information in a GoogleEarth-type platform online. The program would help raise public awareness about rural traffic safety and create a format that moves beyond epidemiological stats. Related resources:
Profiles in Rural Safety: Montana DOT finds unique solutions to rural traffic safety challenges
Montana has a unique set of challenges when it comes to rural highway safety, and state DOT director Jim Lynch is developing unique ways to overcome those challenges. The state has more rural travel conditions than any other in the United States—77 percent of Montana’s roadways are classified as rural. In addition, 80 percent of all mileage logged annually by Montana drivers is on the state’s 12,000 miles of highways, where the typical speed limit is 65 miles per hour. This combination results in more drivers going at higher speeds. Of all traffic accidents in the state, 44 percent are speed-related. But Montana’s most uncommon challenge is the overrepresentation of its American Indian population in those traffic fatalities. Many American Indian traffic fatalities include other factors as well, such as lack of safety belt use or driver intoxication. While they make up only 6 percent of the state’s population, Americans Indians in Montana represent 30 percent of alcohol-related traffic deaths. To combat these problems, Lynch has to work with Montana’s seven independent, sovereign American Indian nations, and therefore insists the solutions must be "multi–agency and multi–jurisdictional." Lynch has also made a strong effort to reach out to American Indian communities. "I can’t go into a Native American Indian reservation telling them what they have to do," Lynch said. "If you’re going to direct that culture so they can trust you and make changes, you need to do it within the reservation." One example of his work on reservations is the Safe On All Roads program. The DOT worked with local community colleges and hired interns to create forums to spur dialogue among young drivers about why they don’t buckle up. The group used traditions from their own native culture to create posters and campaigns to get fellow American Indians to be more safety conscious. For example, when American Indian tribes traveled from place to place, safety was key. American Indians also have a deep-rooted respect for family. So the campaign emphasized that respecting your own safety is respecting your family’s well–being and, that in any travel situation, safety should be a concern. Also, the Sober Behind the Wheel program has been developed on three of Montana’s reservations. It encourages younger residents to sign contracts promising their leaders and families they are committed to safe driving. This means no drinking and driving and also keeping their friends from doing so. Since the state has made an effort to educate the public, alcohol–related fatalities in the last three years are down, injuries among young people are down, and alcohol–related fatalities on Montana’s largest reservation are down. Lynch remains committed to lowering those rates further. "We’ve made some progress, but there’s no silver bullet," he said. "There is no goal line in highway safety. We’ve got to continue to work at keeping our highways safe." Related resources: Profiles in Rural Safety: Iowa DOT’s Tom Welch improves rural safety with critical, low-cost fixes
There’s a time during the Midwest’s summer when standard traffic signs warning of approaching curves blend in with the light green color of maturing corn crops. Iowa safety engineer Tom Welch recognizes issues like this and finds ways to improve roadway safety with low–cost improvements. One rural highway curve—one of many southeast of Iowa City—was known for having a high number of cars that miss the curve and crash off the road, despite the presence of standard warning and curve chevron signage. The fix was bigger, brighter, and taller signs, which Welch said led to a reduction of run-off-the-road crashes by about 20 percent. Welch uses the example of curve signage enhancements to show how low–cost safety improvements, with the help of data–analysis sharing, can lead to big strides that increase road safety and optimize the investment of very limited safety funds. Local safety projects across the state, he said, had a mean crash reduction of 21 percent. That has big implications for safety on local rural roads, where about half of fatalities and major crashes occur. A big part of that is due to cooperation between the state and local governments to share and analyze crash data via the Web. Local crash data and analysis tools have been available as early as the 1970s, Welch said, but not nearly as accessibly as today. "People had to call in and wait weeks to get it," Welch said. Nowadays in Iowa, the analysis of crash data—identifying where and when different crashes happen and the circumstances surrounding those events—is available instantly for engineers and citizens. Maps showing the stretches of roads where single–vehicle run–off–the–road crashes are most common, for instance, can show engineers where low–cost improvements, such as signage or paved shoulders, can give them the most bang for the buck—or rather, the least. "County engineers and local governments are better–enabled with better data," Welch said, noting that the information also serves as marketing for the state’s safety message. Citizens and policymakers can identify and prioritize problem areas without engineering degrees and analytical models. Iowa offers local and county agencies free safety studies, and encourages them to apply for safety improvement grants up to $500,000, funding for which comes from one-half percent of the state road-use tax fund. "Unless you have the money for the projects, the crash data has little value," Welch said. Projects can be as simple as replacing stop signs in small towns, or can involve paving shoulders and installing mast–arm–mounted traffic signals. Such a program doesn’t come to fruition overnight, Welch said, calling it an evolutionary process. He added that Iowa is unique in the way the state and universities work together, in the quality of the data and analysis tools, and a history of cooperation among the Iowa DOT, Iowa’s Department of Public Safety, and local governments. Related resources:
More rural safety news and resourcesThe Culture of Traffic Safety in Rural AmericaNic Ward, Director, HumanFIRST Program, University of Minnesota (2007) Declining Traffic Deaths Lead to Lowest Highway Fatality Rate Ever RecordedU.S. Department of Transportation news release (July 23, 2007) Traffic Safety Facts: 2006 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment—A PreviewNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration, July 2007
This fact sheet offers a preview of results from the 2006 Annual Assessment of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Fatalities and Injuries, which shows that the number of people killed in the United States in motor vehicle traffic crashes declined from 43,510 in 2005 to 42,642, the lowest level in five years.
The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2000National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, May 2002
This report presents the results of an analysis of motor vehicle crash costs in the United States in the year 2000. The total economic cost of motor vehicle crashes in 2000 was $230.6 billion. This represents the present value of lifetime costs for 41,821 fatalities, 5.3 million non-fatal injuries, and 28 million damaged vehicles, in both police-reported and unreported crashes.
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