Arizona Crash Facts 2017

ADOT has released Crash Facts 2017 in mid-year 2018 as usual; I received the database from them sometime in late August, as usual on a burned CD.

The graphical crash map has been updated and now contains 2009-2017 for both MV-bike and MV-ped crashes.

The Fatality Grid has been reconciled and contains some specifics on every bicyclist fatality in Arizona from 2009-2017

Broad Overview of Traffic

The overall number of MV crashes ratcheted up, and there was an alarming rise in fatalities  (unless otherwise stated, all figures are year-over-year; 2015 vs. 2016; and are as was published in Crash Facts 2015 as published) :

• number of MV crashes: 126,845 vs. 127,508  up  slightly
• Total persons Injured: 56,636 vs. 55,662 down 1.7%
• All Fatalities: 962 vs. 1,000 rise of 4%

[ADOT Crash Facts reported 127,064; 55,474; and 1,000 respectively; i.e. the database is probably slightly more current]

The numbers are quite close to flat year-over-year; after several years of signifcant increases since 2013. See some more remarks at last year’s crash facts.

Bicyclist Specific

Whereas the results for cyclists last year showed unexplained sharp decreases the numbers of cyclist crashes, for the current year the numbers were fairly flat  —

• the number of bike-MV crashes:  1476 vs. 1496 .  up 1.3%
• number of cyclists injured: 1350 vs. 1377 up  2%
• The number of bicyclist fatalities, 32, is one more than last year.

[this varies slightly from ADOT Crash Facts which reported 1,490, 1,371 respectively, i.e. 6 more in the database — i.e. the database is probably slightly more current; in years past, they usually matched exactly]

For a caveat on the large decline in reported Bike-MV crashes since 2014; see this article “…low-severity bike-MV crashes have decreased dramatically comparing before versus after 2014; suggesting some sort of policy change”.

Bicyclist Fatal Incidents

Fatal incidents tend to be different modality than bike-MV crashes overall, they also tend to be idiosyncratic. E.g. there were several “crossing” fatalities where a bicyclist was crossing a street mid-block like a pedestrian might.

You can find out more info about each 2017 fatal incident and at the fatal crash grid

The number of hit-and-run fatalities is dramatically fewer than last year when  fully ONE-THIRD (10 of 30 fatal incidents) were hit and run.  This year there were only 3 (of the 31 fatal incidents) reported as hit and run; and I don’t see any so-called “missing” ones either.

Non-traffic Crashes

Non-traffic crashes are those that don’t involve a “motor vehicle in transport” occurring on roads, and on roads open to public travel; and therefore aren’t listed in the crash database. Therefore these can only be known through news reports or word-of-mouth. So the list is bound to be incomplete.

I know of only one non-traffic fatal bicyclist crash in 2017, it’s listed in the 2017 fatal crash grid at the bottom.

Footnotes

The figures above were queried from the database, in past years, it was exactly consistent with the Arizona Crash Facts as published in June . There were some discrepancies as noted above, it appears the database is slightly more complete that the published Crash Facts document.
Here are the basic queries:

SELECT COUNT(1) FROM 2017_incident;
SELECT count(1) FROM 2017_person WHERE eInjuryStatus LIKE "FATAL%";
SELECT count(1) from 2017_person WHERE InjuryStatus BETWEEN 2 AND 4;
SELECT COUNT(1) FROM 2017_incident i WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM 2017_unit u WHERE u.IncidentID=i.IncidentID AND u.eUnitType='PEDALCYCLIST');
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_person WHERE ePersonType='PEDALCYCLIST' AND eInjuryStatus='FATAL';
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_person WHERE eInjuryStatus='FATAL';
SELECT count(1) from 2017_person WHERE InjuryStatus BETWEEN 2 AND 4 AND ePersonType = 'PEDALCYCLIST'; 
SELECT count(1) FROM 2017_incident i WHERE eInjurySeverity='FATAL' AND EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM 2017_unit u WHERE u.IncidentID=i.IncidentID AND eUnitType='PEDALCYCLIST');
SELECT count(1) FROM 2017_incident WHERE eInjurySeverity='FATAL';

These are just sanity checks to be sure the flags are consistent; e.g. all incidents contain a motorist:
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident i WHERE sF_Bicycle;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Bicycle AND sF_Motorist;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Bicycle AND NOT sF_Motorist;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Bicycle AND sF_Motorcycle;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Pedestrian AND sF_Motorist;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Pedestrian AND NOT sF_Motorist;

SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident ;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Motorist = 0 ;
SELECT count(*) FROM 2017_incident WHERE sF_Motorist = 1 ;

 

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