Data Drives Traffic Safety Studies
In 2015, the U.S. saw the largest increase in traffic crash fatalities in nearly 50 years, ending a 5-decade trend of decline. Last year, a tragic 35,092 people lost their lives in motor vehicle crashes. Between 2014 and 2015, there was a 7.2% increase in deaths, and that number is continuing to grow. According to NHTSA, “job growth and low fuel prices were two factors that led to increased driving, including increased leisure driving and driving by young people.”
“Despite decades of safety improvements, far too many people are killed on our nation’s roads every year. Solving this problem will take teamwork, so we’re issuing a call to action and asking researchers, safety experts, data scientists, and the public to analyze the fatality data and help find ways to prevent these tragedies,” says U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has identified transit access and safety in disadvantaged communities as a major priority in the movement to reduce traffic-related fatalities. mySidewalk is working with the DOT to help community leaders use data to move toward this goal. Data will be used to determine which factors could be contributing to crash fatalities in communities, and also help decision-makers better understand how transportation impacts accessibility to key resources (i.e. jobs, healthcare, and education).
By combining elements from the most recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) datasets, mySidewalk is helping the DOT (and community leaders) find data-driven insights to support transportation safety.
The map below is an example of how transportation planners across the country can better focus efforts to increase driver safety and mobility. (This map is interactive! Be sure to click on the tool bar to see more data and use your mouse to view data for individual census tracts.)
This map of Albany, New York quickly identifies which areas have a higher incidence of crash fatalities overall (see the dark green zip). Crash fatality charts included in the the map toolbar provide even deeper insight into possible causes (drunk driver, drowsy driver, or distracted driver) and whether cyclists or pedestrians were involved. The points on the map reveal crash locations and the number of people who lost their lives in those accidents.
Information like this helps communities prioritize efforts, pinpoint places where there are many fatal accidents occurring, and allocate resources for prevention. The goal is to improve traffic safety using data and bring the amount of traffic fatalities back to a declining percentage, or better yet, down to zero.
For more information on this dataset and an overview of historical trends in motor vehicle crashes see this NHTSA research note.
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mySidewalk is a proud participant of The Opportunity Project, a White House initiative intended to expand access to opportunity for all Americans by putting data and digital tools in the hands of families, communities, and local leaders. mySidewalk has taken on projects for both the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG), working with the DOT to make transportation information more accessible and useful to community leaders around the country, while its project with the OSG focused on equipping parents and community leaders with tools to measure emotional well-being levels in their communities. Learn more about this project here.
