Category: safety

Arizona 2007 Traffic Fatalities Plummet

I just heard Michael Hegarty, spokesman for AZ GOHS and/or AZ GTSAC, on the radio reporting that 2007 traffic fatalities fell to 1066 — a 17% decrease from 2006.
This would be an enormous decrease. He seemed pretty nonchalant about it. A drop of this magnitude is unprecedented.

Bicyclist’s fatalities fell the most, 27%, which is good news of course. But I must caution that since there are very few this number fluctuates greatly from year-to-year. The number of bicyclist fatalities has varied from as low as 15 to as high as 36 over the past couple of decades, with no perceptible trend.

Anyway, overall this would be consistent with a large reported drop on state highways (as opposed to all roads). This data was announced back in January and comes out much sooner than the whole-state rollup.

Press accounts published June 6th papers were likewise muted: Arizona Republic and KOLD ran the AP account, East Valley Tribune, which carried this breakdown, sourced to the GTSAC, though I can’t find anything on their website:

TYPE 2006 2007 Change
Pedestrians 167 157 -6%
Motorcyclists 142 135 -5%
Bicyclists 29 21 -28%
Others 18
TOTALS 1288 1066 -17%

Associated Press – June 5, 2008 6:04 PM ET

PHOENIX (AP) – State officials say traffic accidents are claiming fewer lives in Arizona.

The Governor’s Traffic Safety Advisory Council says 1,066 people were killed in traffic-related accidents in 2007. That’s down 17% from the 1,288 deaths in 2006.

The council also says the 2007 figure is the lowest since 2001 and that the state’s population has grown by more than 1 million since then.

The council credits driver education and law enforcement efforts for the reduction.

Arizona’s Teenage Driver Safety Act

Arizona is behind the curve on this, most other states have already done something similar years ago. Arizona’s previous graduated driver’s license was had no teeth.

According to AAA AZ, who supported the legislation: “Arizona is 1 of only 5 states that does not provide either nighttime driving restrictions or passenger limitations for new teenage drivers”, and “Studies of intermediate driving programs in individual states have reported reduction in fatal crash rates of novice drivers that ranged from 11% to 32%”
Chapter 206 HB2033 (48th legislature, 1st regular session, 2007 LAST YEAR, why did it take over a year to become effective??) Arizona’s Teenage Driver Safety Act goes into effect July 1. Here are its key points:

  • Establishes Graduated Driver License, where licensed drivers, ages 16-17, do not have full driving privileges until six months after licensing.
  • Increases supervised training requirement from 25 to 30 hours, of which 10 must be at night.
  • Prohibits driving from midnight to 5 a.m., for the first six months, with exemptions for job, religious or school activities or family emergencies.
  • Limits number of non-family teenage passengers to one, during first six months.
  • Establishes fines and extensions of restrictions for non-compliance.

— Trauma nurse has message for teen drivers, AZ Republic, June 2, 2008

I’m thinking a year would have been a more reasonable time restriction.

AAA Arizona has a big transportation legislation roundup here.

AAA Report on cost of Automobile Crashes

How much of these costs are socialized? The report makes no attempt to quantify this, some of the stories correctly note that some of these costs filter through to many other things, such as health care/insurance.

Why doesn’t our press bother to cover this? The only localized story I could find was  KPNX-12 . Once again we have risen to near the top nationwide, sixth out of 85 not too shabby! This goes hand-in-hand with Arizona’s impressively high traffic fatality rate. Which is something else the press isn’t interested in.

…The report looked at 85 cities across the nation. Phoenix ranks sixth with the highest costs due to crashes. According to the study, it costs $1,368.00 extra per person in the Valley when there is a crash. The national average is $1,052.00 per person.

— Crashes Cost Everyone,  KPNX-12

Continue reading “AAA Report on cost of Automobile Crashes”

More Shocking Arizona Fatality Stats

All of the 2006 state-by-state figures are now available, as I predicted — see Arizona leads the nation — fatality rates in Arizona which were already high, have climbed again. Both the per capita traffic fatality rate and per mile rate are now 46% higher than the US as a whole. The per capita rate is over 3 times worse than the “best state”.

And for bicyclists, there is hopeful news, the 2006 number of Arizona cyclist fatalities at 29 (out of 1288 total) seems to be in line with historical trends. The 2005 number was atypically high at 35. Continue reading “More Shocking Arizona Fatality Stats”

Sidewalk Cycling in Prescott Valley, Arizona

First, to understand the legal position you must first understand what the State of Arizona says about Sidewalk Cycling in Arizona.

I was taken aback by this newspaper story Bicyclists, motorists go by same rules, The Daily Courier (Prescott, AZ), Jan 31, 2008. Continue reading “Sidewalk Cycling in Prescott Valley, Arizona”

Media Bias

Stories in the media tend to exaggerate the dangerousness of cycling. There is also a general undertone that motorists who hurt/kill cyclists tend to “get away with it”. Both these concepts have a certain element of truth, of course, but ignore the context of traffic generally. Traffic fatalities are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States — regardless of cyclist fatalities. By far the largest number of fatalities are motor-vehicle drivers and occupants. There is far more motor-vehicle traffic so this is to be expected. With regard to “getting away with it”: most negligent motorists (excepting DUI) get away with it, without regard to what it is they killed; be it a another driver, another occupant, motorcyclist, pedestrian or cyclist. Continue reading “Media Bias”

The Risk of (Bus) Riding

I suppose I should have expected this story, after the tragedy at Mexican Hat, Utah last week. A bus returning to Phoenix, Arizona from a ski trip crashed, killing nine and injuring dozens.

Anyone glancing at page 1 of today’s Arizona Republic would have to be forgiven if they got the impression that travel by bus was incredibly dangerous. The headline blares: “THE RISK OF RIDING” (I”m not shouting, it was in all caps!); the graphic with large font colored type: “146 fatalities” (in very small print above, “1996-2005”. That’s 10 years!)

The story by Robert Anglen was entitled “Bus-safety shortcomings have drawn attention but little action“, but that was published in subtitle-sized type, subordinate to THE RISK OF RIDING.

Inside, there were four enormous pictures “In the first six days of 2008, four buses crashed in the U.S.”. Of course, in those same six days there were thousands of (other) grisly crashes, and hundreds of (other) traffic fatalities but none of them were pictured, or even mentioned — it’s all about the buses, and their obvious huge risks.

So, does traveling in a bus have risk? Of course. The story did make some attempt to compare the risks to general traffic, e.g. “There are 20 to 25 motor-coach deaths per year compared with 41,000 auto deaths”. Thats a good start. But then “The American Bus Association, a trade organization representing 1,000 motor-coach companies, estimates that there are 0.05 bus fatalities for every 100 million passenger miles traveled” was left hanging. To put this last number into context, the official overall US fatality rate is 1.46 per 100 million VMT (Vehicle miles traveled. NHTSA data here, and also note that Arizona rates are significantly worse). Since the number of occupants per vehicle overall hovers not much above 1, that makes traveling by bus about 30 TIMES SAFER than riding around in a car. (It probably implies that the motor-coach fatality rate is similar when compared on a per VMT basis, since they would tend to have large passenger loads)

In short, the story follows the perennial bias of ignoring or downplaying general traffic problems (largely automobile). While causing needless anxiety and leading to worsen the very problem resulting in more fatalities — “why doesn’t my child’s bus have seat belts? I better drive them myself instead”