CERS hosts new Rural Highway Safety Clearinghouse

U.S. Transportation Deputy Secretary Thomas J. Barrett announced Monday that the University of Minnesota will be home to a new national clearinghouse for information about the best ways to make rural roads safer. The Rural Highway Safety Clearinghouse, developed and maintained by the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS), is part of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters' national strategy to bring new focus, including resources and new technology, to reducing deaths on the nation's rural roads.

“The only way we will cut the number of deaths and injuries on the nation's roads is by finding a way to get officials the right information at the right time,” Barrett said. “The University of Minnesota is going to do just that—and as a result, it is going to make our roads safer.”

The new clearinghouse, funded by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), is intended to be an easy-to-use starting point for information about safety on our nation's rural roads. The site, created as a resource especially for rural safety coalitions, provides links to safety publications and other resources grouped by safety topics including the four E's (education, emergency medical services, enforcement, and engineering). Additional topics include data and statistics, driver behavior, safety planning, seat belts, and work-zone safety.

“It's not every day that researchers and administrators get to save a life simply by talking about their work,” Barrett said. “Hundreds of drivers will one day soon owe their lives to the faculty and staff of this great institution.”

The Rural Highway Safety Clearinghouse will report on the various activities conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and other federal, state, and local partners to improve rural transportation safety. Besides supporting the USDOT Rural Safety Initiative and facilitating rural safety partnerships, the site will collect and market best practices as well as the latest findings in rural safety research. The site has a submission form to encourage sharing of information about rural safety publications and other resources.

“From a USDOT point of view, we want to share what's being learned here all across the country,” Barrett said.

The clearinghouse also lists federal, state, academic, and non-profit agencies and organizations related to rural safety. The USDOT agencies listed are: the FHWA, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

The Department's Rural Safety Initiative will help states and communities develop ways to eliminate the risks drivers face on America's rural roads and highlight available solutions and resources. The new endeavor addresses five key goals: safer drivers, better roads, smarter roads, better-trained emergency responders, and improved outreach and partnerships. Approximately $287 million in existing and new funding is available to support the effort.

The Center for Excellence in Rural Safety, established by the 2005 federal transportation act, is a joint program between the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the Center for Transportation Studies, and sponsored by the FHWA, to facilitate research, training, and outreach activities related to rural transportation safety.

Related resources:

• Rural Highway Safety Clearinghouse
• Rural Highway Safety Clearinghouse resource submission form
• Fast Lane blog: University of Minnesota Working to Make Rural Roads Safer
• USDOT press release
• USDOT Rural Safety Initiative

Research seeks to save more lives by improving EMS response time

In rural areas, the average emergency response time is 52 minutes compared to 34 minutes in urban areas. According to CERS research director Tom Horan, this may partially explain why rural crashes are more likely to be fatal crashes, with 60 percent of all U.S. traffic fatalities occurring on rural roads though only about 20 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Survivability for trauma patients is significantly improved if arrival to a hospital is less than 30 minutes.

“Because of the longer response times, there is an important need to understand how emergency response can be improved,” Horan said. “We need to understand the role information can play in improving the timeliness and the quality of emergency response in rural areas.”

In 2007, Horan and CERS established a partnership with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to develop a best-practices model for responding to emergencies in rural areas. The clinic, in addition to having a state-of-the-art emergency care and emergency communications department, owns the local ambulance provider as well as helicopter and air medical transport services. Representatives of every phase of an emergency response participated in focus groups with Horan and research associate Ben Schooley to determine where gaps in information existed and how information technologies might address those gaps. The researchers also were given access to information about crashes and medical response for the year 2006.

Horan envisions an integrated statewide crash trauma information network in Minnesota that will serve as a prototype “Crash Help” system. Horan stressed the need to track a patient in real-time from end-to-end—from the time of a 9-1-1 notification through a patient's treatment and discharge from the hospital (and rehabilitation)—to ensure the best possible care.

At present, critical EMS data concerning a patient are not typically available to hospital personnel at the time of care. Critical information could include everything from the G-force of the crash, which on-car computer systems, such as OnStar, might collect, to whether the occupant was thrown from the vehicle, to any pre-existing medical conditions the victim might have, such as high blood pressure, or a list of medications the victim may be taking.

“In order to be effective, you have to cut across those silos and deliver information that can be used during emergency response,” Horan said. “It's really two cultures coming together and not coming together: the response culture and the hospital culture.”

A new emergency response process should streamline information technologies during different stages of an emergency response, Horan said. Time and quality of patient care during traffic emergencies would consequently improve. “It's not just the response time,” he said. “It's the quality of the response.”

Horan separated the emergency response process into seven stages. If information technologies such as electronic personal health records, GPS navigation, and the Mayday system are incorporated those stages, then response time would drop.

Besides using integrated crash and trauma data to improve emergency treatment, especially in rural areas, Horan explained that the information could help better communicate traffic safety issues (including response) to policymakers and the public for system-wide planning and design.

In addition to expanding the end-to-end data analysis to support a statewide crash trauman information network, Horan is exploring partnerships with the Minnesota Department of Health, Department of Public Safety, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation. He is also establishing connections with related national companies and organizations, such as OnStar, COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance, and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

The research, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, is being conducted through the State and Local Policy Program at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs in collaboration with CERS and the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Institute at CTS, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation.

Related resources:

• CERS Rural Safety, Health, and Emergency Response research
• CERS and affiliated research projects
• Federal Highway Administration
• Mayo Clinic
• OnStar
• COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance
• Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)

Profiles in Safety: North Carolina newspaper puts a face on rural fatalities

Rural highway and safety agencies often lack resources and funding to prevent traffic fatalities. Media coverage about those agencies is nevertheless sparse. But Patrick Gannon, a reporter for the Wilmington Star-News, a newspaper in rural southeast North Carolina, gave rural transportation safety a front-page slot in a recent crash series.

Gannon reported that North Carolina's Department of Transportation has been struggling to keep up with a backlog of safety projects. The backlog comes amid growing numbers of traffic fatalities in Brunswick County, the area of concentration in the series. If funded, the projects would restructure dangerous rural roads, address drunk driving, and educate teen drivers—all of them potentially saving lives.

“(The series) pretty much validated what everybody was saying,” Gannon said. “There were a lot of deaths for a county of that size.”

The state's department of transportation since 2004 has delayed funding a project that would improve an intersection on U.S. highway 17 with a history of deadly t-bone crashes. In Brunswick County, there were 32 traffic fatalities in 2007, Gannon reported. The state's transportation department, meanwhile, is dealing with “a current backlog of nearly 170 projects identified by regional traffic engineers to remedy safety hazards,” Gannon reported.

But Gannon's series, a total of four articles published in April, went beyond reporting crash fatality statistics. In all four articles, Gannon leads with a story about someone affected by rural crashes, from the victims' family members to a local coroner who “has been called to more deadly wrecks lately.”

“I just wanted to put a face to the people who died,” Gannon said.

One article, “Remembering 4 young women, killed too soon,” profiled four Brunswick County crash victims. Another gives an account of a 22 year-old man who served jail time because he was speeding when his car rolled, ejecting and killing a 13-year-old girl sitting in the backseat without a seatbelt on. Her mother, Gannon reported, argued that the 75-day jail sentence wasn't harsh enough. The driver apologized to the family.

A National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NHTSA) study comparing urban and rural driving statistics shows that in 2006 three states had more rural traffic fatalities than North Carolina, at 1,089. Gannon reported that the number of traffic deaths in Brunswick County outpaced traffic growth.

More broadly, the study, updated in March 2008, found that although 23 percent of the U.S. population lived in rural areas in 2006, rural traffic crashes accounted for 56 percent of all traffic fatalities that year.

The inordinate number of traffic deaths, recounted in newspaper briefs, inspired Gannon to write the series. Once obtaining the traffic fatality data, Gannon said he found that a large number of crashes resulted from drunk driving, not wearing a seatbelt, or careless driving on outdated, two-lane roads.

Although Gannon said he didn't see any immediate changes in policy or decision making after the series, he received a lot of responses from everyday citizens. He's planning to write a follow-up story about the series.

“I don't see a sense of urgency for solving these problems immediately,” Gannon said.

Related resources:

• Wilmington Star-News series: A Deadly Toll
• North Carolina Department of Transportation: Brunswick County
• 2006 Traffic Safety Facts—Rural/Urban Comparison (NHTSA)(648 KB PDF)

Guidelines offer conversion options for four-lane undivided highways

Four-lane undivided highways passing through small towns often have poor safety records, characterized by rear-end (stopped-vehicle/through-vehicle) and sideswipe collisions. Converting to three lanes with a central two-way turn lane is one solution frequently considered by transportation agencies. But while conversion to three lanes can provide advantages to local stakeholders, Keith Knapp cautioned that careful planning is necessary to carry out a successful conversion.

Knapp, research manager for the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety, gave an overview of considerations affecting three-lane conversions in a Center for Transportation Studies research seminar on March 20 at the University of Minnesota. Presentation slides and a video recording of the seminar, “Four-Lane to Three-Lane Conversion Case Study: State Highway Through a Small Town,” are available online.

Throughout his presentation, Knapp drew a distinction between feasibility and desirability. While a conversion may be feasible in many locations, he said, careful analysis is required to determine whether a three-lane cross-section is really desirable in the context of local traffic needs.

To help ensure a successful conversion, Knapp said, it is important to match the highway cross-section to the traffic flow characteristics. If the two center lanes of a four-lane undivided roadway are already being used primarily for left turns, for example, converting to a three-lane cross section may result in a safety improvement without much loss of mobility. However, if traffic flow is dominated by through traffic with few turning vehicles, a conversion may not yield appreciable benefits.

Knapp summarized case study roadway evaluations in several locations across the country, including Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, California, and Washington. These successful case studies and some simulation analysis, Knapp said, indicate that four-lane to three-lane conversions may be feasible for highway sections that carry between 8,400 and 20,000 vehicles per day. The success of conversions also depends on many factors, which include matching the roadway design to the desires of the local community and properly serving through-vehicles and trucks.

Conversions to three lanes generally involve a trade-off of slower speeds for fewer crashes. In many cases, the speed reduction may not be onerous for road users, but it is important to understand how changing the roadway cross-section can affect not just the number of crashes, but the type of crashes that occur as well.

This article was adapted from the April 2008 issue of CTS Research E-News.

Related resources:

• Watch presentation video
• Download presentation slides (668 KB PDF)
• Safety and Operational Characteristics of Two-Way Left Turn Lanes (Mn/DOT 2006-25) (2.2 MB PDF)
• Iowa DOT guidelines (PDF 630 KB)

Traffic and Safety Engineer's Corner: Rural Roadway Crash Characteristics

by Keith Knapp, P.E.
CERS Research Manager

Improving roadway safety is a primary focus of transportation agencies throughout the United States. However, more than 70 percent of the lane miles in this country are in rural areas, and reducing rural roadway crashes represents a large and complex challenge.

Overall, in 2006 approximately 56 percent of all roadway fatalities in the United States were rural, but only 23 percent of the population resided in rural areas. In addition, the national fatality crash rate in rural areas was more than twice that of urban areas.

The factors that contribute to fatal rural crashes are multi-dimensional, and their reduction requires a safety improvement program with similar characteristics. Safety improvement measures that alter driving behavior, roadway infrastructure, and emergency response activities are necessary.

In 2006, for example, rural area roadway crashes had the following characteristics:

• 57 percent of drivers were in speed-related fatal crashes
• 58 percent of the passenger vehicle fatalities were related to alcohol impairment
• 57 percent of rural roadway fatalities were unrestrained, and overall seat belt use was approximately 78 percent (versus 84 percent in urban areas)

Related to these statistics are the types of crashes that occur in rural areas. In 2006, an estimated 58 percent of all the roadway fatalities nationally were roadway departures, with at least twice as many rural run-off-the-road fatalities than urban. In 2006, 21 percent of the roadway fatalities in the United States were also intersection-related, and about 40 percent of these crashes are on rural roadways. Also, in 2006, about 72 percent of drivers that died en route to the hospital were in rural areas.

The characteristics of the rural roadway incidents described above are not mutually exclusive. For example, drivers that speed or drink may be more likely to run off the road at a curve and be killed (especially if they are not wearing their seat belt). Removing or reducing any one of these four factors, however, may produce a more favorable outcome from this sequence of events or crash causal chain (e.g., no fatality may occur).

Clearly, a comprehensive program of educational, enforcement, and engineering measures is needed to improve the safety of the rural roadway system throughout the United States. Moreover, changes in policy and legislation are often necessary to improve safety.

Each state department of transportation (DOT) now has a strategic highway safety plan (SHSP). In addition, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) recently introduced its Rural Safety Initiative. This initiative involves the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and Research and Innovative Technology Administration. These partner agencies will focus on a cooperative and comprehensive approach to rural roadway safety improvements. In addition, the Rural Safety Innovation Program recently started by FHWA and NHTSA has introduced a Rural Youth Traffic Safety Message Competition.

Related resources:

• USDOT Rural Safety Initiative
• FHWA Strategic Highway Safety Plans Quick Reference Summary
• AASHTO/NCHRP Strategic Highway Safety Plan
• NHTSA Rural Youth Traffic Safety Message Competition