How Does Boulder Increase Safety with Car Crashes?
Boulder, Colorado is known to be a beautiful city with vibrant seasons and offer tons of opportunities for fun, education, and employment. Just like every city in the United States, cars and automobiles are on a constant move with individuals getting to one place or the other. In just the United States, there are over 6 million passenger car accidents on average every year. In Boulder, there is the Safe Streets Boulder Report that measures traffic crash data by identifying trends in crashes and evaluates past safety improvement efforts. Vision Zero was a plan adopted in 2014 that uses a data-driven approach increasing the safety of Boulder County’s streets. The plan has been updated for the years 2023–2027 with changes to how streets are built, deploying photo radar vans, red light cameras, and updates to design practices and funding. Boulder is home to many in-state and out-of-state residents and about 70% of the city’s workers drive a vehicle to get to work and about 80% of the city’s non-resident workers drive a car to work. The trend of commuting through automobiles than to bike or walk is high while there is a growing concern for safety.
As a Coloradoan driver who’s been driving for seven years and was a daily commuter to Boulder every weekday. I wondered when do car collisions in most frequently occur and why? To answer this, I analyzed a dataset from the open data of Boulder, Colorado called Crash. This dataset displayed data about collisions reported to the Boulder Police Department (BPD) and compiled by the BPD, the Transportation & Mobility Department, and Innovation & Technology.
The dataset provides collisions within the city of Boulder and not Boulder County. I first started my data exploration by looking at the number of crashes by year. What year was the worst in the past 5 years? Is road safety getting better? In figure 1, there was a peak of around 2700 car crashes in 2018 and then declined in the year 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit. This follows the trend of COVID as many individuals were in a state of lock down only driving when necessary. The trend then slowly rises but peaks at around 1800 crashes.
I then wondered about the number of crashes by the hour of the day. At what time of the day are you most likely to get into a car accident? Analyzing the past five years, in figure 2, there is a rising trend of car crashes occurring at 6am to the peak at 3pm which slowly declines for the next few hours until 6pm where there is a significant drop in the number of crashes. From the start to the end of the day, there are more people active during the daylight. It’s when people are waking up and getting ready to go to school, for work, or other leisure activities. After work, people are eager to get back and the rise in large amounts of people getting off at the same time increases traffic flow.
Next, what types of car collisions are mostly prevalent? In figure 3, there is the number of the types of motor vehicular collisions. The most significant being front to rear end collisions followed by front to side collisions, parked vehicle collisions, side to side same direction collisions then to objects and bikers; there is over 4000 over the past five years then drops to around 2500, 1500, 1400, 1200, 800 respectively. Excessive speeding, impaired driving, or simply not paying attention could be reasons for why there are many front to rear end collisions. Data in Boulder suggest, “The data tells us that the top causes of crashes in the city are speeding and left-hand turns, especially in our high-traffic areas,” by Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold. Front to side collisions can be attribute to left-hand turns. Left-hand turns car collisions happen because of drivers trying to turn left while the car in front of them is moving straight. These types of collisions are prevalent in intersections and have became a problem in Boulder.
Now, what types of accidents are occurring at what time of the day? This heatmap visualization shows the collision type by hour. At 8am there seems to be a considerable amount of collisions to 6pm but most notably from 4–6pm is the period where there is significant car crashes occurring usually with front to rear collisions. The period where people are getting off work and school is a period where accidents are more likely to occur. Although there are many car collisions, most of the collisions aren’t fatal. In Boulder County, the years of 2021, 2022, and 2023 had only 31, 35, and 22 people died from fatal traffic crashes at the time this post is made.
The visualizations provided insights in the type of collisions that can occur during different parts of the day. With data about the past five years, safety with motor vehicles is slowly increasing. Further data analysis in the future can include where do accidents happen the most? Was the driver in a state of impairment? What are the safest roads around the city of Boulder? Are there more accidents on dry or wet roads? Datasets containing more than just the city of Boulder and of Boulder County would be beneficial as well. But for now, there aren’t many fatal car crashes but rather smallish car collisions.
According to the Denver Trial, the top causes for car wrecks in Colorado are driver negligence, impaired driving, distracted driving, fatigued driving, aggressive driving, and reckless driving. These factors play a role in the way public commute is around Boulder as many people live in the city and many commute from out of the city. Boulder County’s Vision Zero plan to reduce and stop the number of serious car crashes sees success as less car crashes are happening. The effort aims not just with policy enforcement but with creating a sense of community and commitment to safer driving. As Boulder continues to enforce and improve current traffic laws, it takes a community to slow down every now and then and pay attention to the road. Each individual’s commitment is key to enhancing public safety while also decreasing fatal car crashes.
