2010 FARS and PBcat

Commencing with the recently-released 2010 data FARS (The USDOT’s Fatality Analysis and Reporting System) will have far more specialized detail on Pedestrian and Bicyclists crashes.

618 cyclists (person type 6 bicyclist, and 7 other pedalcyclist) were killed in 2010 in traffic collisions — and as noted at the link above, only collisions with motor vehicles in-transport are tracked by FARS. So for example, a bicyclist who lost control and died as a result of crashing into a tree would not be tracked here, nor would a bicyclist who strikes a parked motor vehicle.

The added information becomes a new “table” (in the parlance of databases), if you download the raw data files, it will be all found in the file PBtype.dbf

The information follows more-or-less exactly the PBcat, probably no coincidence. PBcat is the Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crash Analysis Tool, and contains among other things the bicyclists direction, and a detailed crash type (or for the complete reference, see PBcat’s manual, appendix C)

So, say you were interested in bicyclists running stop signs; you would do a query and then a univariate split and take a look at Types 142, 144, and 147; all subtypes of “Bicyclist Failed to yield — Sign-Controlled Intersection”. There were 17+41+1 = 59 such fatalities recorded.

Since this is the first and only year where these national stats are available, they are of limited usefulness — that will change over time as the dataset grows and wil become a very useful comprehensive source of understanding bicyclist (and pedestrian) traffic fatalities.

PBcat in the wild

It’s not clear to me why, but the state of North Carolina had PBcatted all their ped and bike crashes statewide for many years; leading to a very rich database of statistical information. E.g. 12,000 bike crashes covering the period 1997-2008!

In Arizona, ADOT as part of the BSAP has PBcatted 746 bike crashes in the “concentration” areas but it only covers the state-highway system. See e.g. Table 1 in working paper 3 for the full breakout of crash types.

Final 2010 U.S. Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities released

Final 2010 figures

…released 12/8/2011;  fastlane.dot.gov, at 32,885 the number is slightly higher than the early estimates which come out in the spring.

The 2010 dataset is not yet available in FARS, which is a little strange given that last year’s data was released in September (i.e. 2009 dataset available September 2010). update: the 2010 FARS data came up sometime in early December.

Final Arizona 2010 figures were released in August.

Bicyclist Fatalities

As bikinginla.wordpress.com  points out, 618 cyclist deaths in 2010 makes it the lowest overall figure in some 35 years. The Arizona figure, 19, puts it close to our 10-year average; coming off of a bad 2009 (25).

Ped Problems?

USA Today article: ”The USA is getting riskier for people on foot, and experts aren’t sure why.” Mike Sanders noted the ped issue, see comment here on the final Arizona 2010 figures.   Speed matters and need to redefine mobility – “Everyone should be familiar with the chart that shows that a pedestrian hit by a car traveling at 20 miles per hour (mph) percent survivability rate. That same collision with a car going twice as fast, 40 mph, will lower the survivability likelihood to 15 percent” (Laplante and McCann, Complete Streets: We Can Get There from Here, ITE journal, May 2008).

An rather than viewing it as a zero-sum game where motorists must lose mobility in order to make streets safer for peds; Beyond Safety in Numbers suggests that the safer streets for peds are quite likely safer streets for motorists as well.

Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2010

The early estimates come out in the spring (late march i think), here was the buzz at that time…

The media is abuzz with projections released a couple of days ago by NHTSA that 2010 traffic fatalities are at there lowest number since the Truman administration, and the closely-watch per VMT figure is the lowest ever recorded. Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2010:

A statistical projection of traffic fatalities in 2010 shows that an estimated 32,788 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents a decline of about 3 percent as compared to the 33,808 fatalities that occurred in 2009…  The fatality rate for 2010 are projected to decline to the lowest on record, to 1.09 fatalities per 100 million VMT, down from 1.13 fatalities per 100 million VMT in 2009

Here are the Early Estimates for 2009, and 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

Arizona has the highest cycling fatality rate?

[updated October 2010: Final data for 2009 has AZ as 4th highest bicycling fatality rate (per capita, i.e. per population). See e.g. this media story referring to the BSAP]

Tied to April being bike month in Arizona is of course a crop of media stories.

Imagine how surprised I was to read that “Arizona has the highest cycling fatality rate, based on population in the United States”. Read the rest of this entry »

ADOT’s Bicycle Safety Action Plan Study

ADOT’s Bicycle Safety Action Plan Study (BSAP) is a multi-phase plan to assess and improve bicycle traffic safety, with emphasis on Arizona state highways. In urban areas that often means the interchanges.

During the five-year study period “There were a total of 9,867 bicycle crashes statewide in Arizona…  crashes that occurred on state highways were extracted from the statewide data set. There were 1,089 bicycle-motor vehicle crashes reported on state highways between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2008″ (see Working Paper 1, Section 4.2).

Thus this data set accounts for a small minority of bike-MV crashes, around 11%. But Working Paper 1,  table 15 offers a useful comparison between the studied data and all statewide data. For example, we see the same suspiciously-high percentage (24 to 25%) of “other” fault ascribed to bicyclists as with other studies. As I’ve written before, the “other” fault is generally the result of a poor/improper crash investigations that tends to wrongly faults cyclists who are doing nothing illegal (see Understanding Collision Summaries) — this is statistical proof of poor-quality investigations are a statewide problem for bicyclists. This is a shortcoming of the crash reports, and not the BSAP;  in Working Paper 1, figure 20, something they call “primary contributing factor” by crash group is assigned overwhelmingly to motorists (67%), and only 24% to bicyclists.

Press coverage

There was a lengthy, front page A1,  Arizona Republic article by Sean Holstege on Sept 17, 2011 which perhaps was intended to be about the plan but did wander, understandably, to general topics. For example they make great hay out of the per capital fatality stats, without any discussion of how to interpret them — e.g. how weather probably affects them, with Arizona being more of a year-round cycling state; or a higher per capita usage, e.g. Arizona has significantly higher (than US) percentage of commuters (according to census figures, see Working Paper 1, Table 1 — Arizona is 0.9% versus 0.5% nationwide).

The story, as many “bicycle safety” stories do, lacks context of traffic in general. So, for example, there was a chart of the number of bike-MV collisions (about 2,000/year total). There is no mention of the fact that that represents only a tiny fraction of all MV collisions ( which ran well over 100,000/year over the study period). And though it mentions the number of fatalites, say 25 in 2008 — it never mentioned the total number of traffic fatalities (it runs around, and lately something under, 1,000 per year).

So here are some hard numbers, over the five year period 2004 – 2008 there were 681,466 MV crashes, of which 9,730 were bike-MV — a little less than 1.5% (taken from the historical overview in the 2009 Bicyclist Fatality study, which were gleaned from AZ Crash Facts — note that the numbers a slightly different in the BSAP, but I don’t know why). The number of fatalities is 4,943 total, 132 bicyclist; or 2.67% — so bicyclist fatalities were somewhat over-represented but not dramatically so.

Note that the ADOT plan by design is aimed at the small percentage of bike-MV crashes that occur on the state highway system. “The majority of bicycle crashes in Arizona (approximately 90 percent) occur on local, city, and county roadways outside of ADOT jurisdiction”

Also, by the way, the article inaccurately stated that the BSAP recommends a mandatory taillight law. That was in an earlier draft but was since removed — I don’t believe there is adequate evidence to support the additional burden on cyclists. The article does correctly mention that the BSAP recommends state-level sidewalk law clarifications, which seem like a worthy endeavor, given the huge proportion of sidewalk-related collisions, along with the current legal murky morass that currently exists when cyclists who cycle on the sidewalk subsequently collide with vehicles in crosswalks and driveways.

—

See more about Media Bias in bicycling safety stories.

ADOT 2010 Crash Facts

ADOT’s 2010 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts has just been released.

Highlights are the total number of fatalities continued to fall; there were a total of 762 persons killed in 2010, a 5% decrease from the year before.

There were 19 bicyclists killed on Arizona’s road in collisions with motor vehicles in 2010, which compares favorably with the 25 killed in 2009. That means there are two (possibly three) missing from this tally for 2010.

The MOST COMMON DRIVER VIOLATION is (remains) Speed too fast for condition

There were 106,177 crashes in total, of which 1,914 were bike-MV crashes.

Dangerous by Design

While we’re on the subject, t4america.org released the latest version of their recurring report Dangerous By Design 2011; where metro-Phoenix has a recurring, starring role as a particularly dangerous place for pedestrians — the 8th worst rate in the US. The only places significantly higher are basically several (!) metro areas in Florida.

Bad for pedestrians tends to translate into bad for motorists and bicyclists, as well — in other words, we’re all in this together.  Arizona’s motorist fatality ”VMT rate  is over twice as deadly as Massachusett’s. The disparity in per capita rate, since Arizonans drive more miles, is even worse…. more”

But you are not likely to hear anything about how or if or why Arizona isn’t closing the gap; or even that a gap exists! — rather that deaths overall have merely fallen. Here is a typical new-release-style story: azfamily.com story

Back to the DbyD report, they have this concept called PDI, the Pedestrian Danger Index; Phoenix-metro at 132 is many times worse than, for example, Boston-metro at 21.6.

And just to throw out a factoid, for the year 2009 (the most recent year for which detailed stats are available) there were more bicyclists killed within the City of Phoenix (9) than were killed in the entire state of Massachusetts(6).

The population of Phoenix is 1.5M versus State of Massachusetts having 6.5M…. The C.O.P., accused rightly as being an enormous-sprawling place covers 516 square miles, the state of Massachusetts 7,840 square miles of land area.

John Allen’s blog reflecting upon the fact that in the DbyD report, the Boston-metro area came in dead last (SAFEST!) of all large metro areas in US — “Strange, isn’t it — the Boston area has repeatedly been derogated as supposedly having the nation’s craziest drivers”.

Arizona’s Rural Highway Traffic Safety Problem

A couple of days after the data was released, and somewhat to my chagrin, the arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/09/02/20110902arizona-deadly-rural-roads.html did a fairly long and detailed piece on what ADOT is doing to identify and address rural highway problems… though, interestingly, the latest Crash Facts shows a steeper decline in rural as opposed to urban fatalities.

So far, no one that I know of, has said or suggested that Arizona’s high rate of rural fatalities is what accounts for Arizona’s overall high traffic fatality rate. Perhaps that is so?

As mentioned in the article, rural fatal crashes tend to be single-vehicle — though that is a little misleading because a bike-MV, or ped-MV crash is defined as a single-vehicle.

Here are the number of fatal crashes split by urban/rural for 2009 and 2010:

Peds fatal crashes, total/urban/rural: 156 / 102 / 54 ( 2009: 121 / 77 / 44)

cyclists killed, total/urban/rural:         19 / 17/ 2 ( 2009: 25 / 17 / 8 )

(all inclusive) Number of fatal crashes, total / urban / rural: 698 / 354 / 344 (2009: 709 / 299/ 410)

…

Here is some discussion of the 2010 National results: early-estimate-of-motor-vehicle-traffic-fatalities%C2%A0in%C2%A02010/

IIHS Driver Fatality Rate Stats

The IIHS does this every so often, e.g. see here for their report from a couple of years ago.

So, the latest is Dying in a Crash, Vol 46, No. 5, June 2011. It covers 2005-08 model year passenger vehicles during calendar years 2006-09. It also specifically only covers driver fatality rates.

The big news is that SUVs, which long have had higher death rates than passenger cars — due to the much higher rollover deaths — have become safer, due presumably to the prevalance of ESC (electronic stability control) in newer model SUVs.

There is no accounting for attempt to account for danger imposed on others.

What the WSJ Thinks

The WSJ has been running the same editorial and op-eds for as long as there’s been a CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Econonmy, probably 30 years old now) Read the rest of this entry »

Manner and Fault in Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities: Arizona 2009

Abstract

Traffic records for all bicyclist fatalities occurring in Arizona during the year 2009 were categorized and listed according to manner of collision and assignment of fault. Primary results are that 11 of 25 fatalities (44%) were determined to be the fault of the cyclist; while 14 of 25 (56%) were the fault of a motor vehicle driver. The most common manner of collision is when a driver strikes a cyclist from behind.

Full Report

The full report is available in pdf format:
Manner and Fault in Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities: Arizona 2009
Supporting data: 2009CyclistFatals.xls

Comments or questions may be left here, or contact me.

There were some somewhat out-of-context statements about my report on the npr.org health blog. They probably should have mentioned that the report covers only FATAL bike-MV collisions (a tiny fraction of all bike-MV collisions), and that the manner of collision in fatals varies significantly from non-fatals.

Read the rest of this entry »

Arizona bicyclist fatalities 2003-2006

How did I miss this one?

Should State DOTs Prefer Bicycle Lanes or Wide Curb Lanes? A.L. Dennison, 2008 [.pdf] This report was produced for ADOT in cooperation with US DOT/Federal Highway Authority.

Bicycle facility advocates have long debated the respective merits of bicycle lanes (BLs) and wide curb lanes (WCLs); this report investigates their claims… This study found no apparent relationship between fatal bicycle/motor vehicle collisions and type of bike facility… A significant handicap to any analysis of bicycle travel or safety is the paucity of reliable data.

Of great interest to me was the categorization of bicyclist fatalities over a four year (2003-2006) period, based on police reports. Somehow I missed this report entirely even as I echoed its complains about the “paucity of reliable data” for cyclist/traffic collisions while researching Manner and Fault in Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities: Arizona 2009.

According to my (from ADOT’s Arizona Crash Facts) records there were 15, 27, 35, 30 fatals in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively. This totals 107, but the report says that “We obtained 85 (97%) of 88 microfilmed fatal bicyclist/motorist crash reports submitted to AzDOT by police agencies in Arizona between 2003-2006″. The missing 3 (88-85) are explained in a footnote. But one wonders, where are the other 19? (=107 – 88). Does that mean that not all fatalities are submitted to ADOT? … so the answer i am told is that it covers the time period 17-Oct-2003 to 25-Sept-2006, which makes sense.

U.S. lagging in reducing traffic fatalities

AP Story U.S. lagging in reducing traffic fatalities. With all the feel-good news items about how fatality rates are supposedly so low, it’s good to get some perspective. The US is way behind in reigning in traffic deaths, and has fallen behind most other developed countries in both per-mile and is waaay behind in per-capita rates. Traffic deaths remain the leading cause of death for a huge swath of Americans.

And Arizona is even worse than US averages. For contrast, see what we’ve done with photo-enforcement in Arizona.

The large improvements in particular in US in the past few years are likely simply the result of poor economic conditions (no job means no job to drive to; and no money to spend driving around) — and not of some sort of systemic shift. Read the rest of this entry »

Obtaining Police Reports

As part of my project to monitor the most serious bicycle – vehicle collisions, I will be obtaining the Arizona Crash Report(ACR) for every bicyclist fatality in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »