The Transportationist

From Australia's ABC Road deaths cost world economy $540b

Road deaths cost world economy $540b By Moscow Correspondent Scott Bevan

Posted 1 hour 28 minutes ago

Government ministers and traffic safety campaigners from around the world are meeting in Moscow in a bid to reduce the global annual road toll.

It is estimated 1.3 million people die on the world's roads each year.

So far this year there have been 168,000 traffic accidents in Russia alone, killing 21,300 people and injuring 212,500.

The meeting has been billed as the first global ministerial summit on road safety, prompted by the enormous impact crashes have on lives and economies around the world.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev says road crashes drain the global economy of $US500 billion ($540 billion) a year.

As well as sharing information, summit participants are expected to sign a declaration calling for a decade of action for road safety.

Australia's Federal Department of Transport delegate Joe Motha says the declaration could help focus efforts and coordinate know-how to tackle the problem.

"It's not an issue that's a knowledge issue, it's more an issue of implementing what's already known," he said.

Campaigners from the Commission for Global Road Safety estimate a decade of action could save five million lives.

Tags: disasters-and-accidents, accidents, road-accidents, safety, russian-federation

One of the interesting aspects of this came up in CE5212 class on Wednesday, which is insurance. Traffic crash damage (including both bodily damage and property damage) costs are borne by the victims, and, in the US, a multitude of insurance companies, but traffic crash prevention are borne by the road agency.

No single individual or insurance company has the incentive to improve road safety. I cannot personally spend money to improve a road which is only one of many I travel on, and an insurance company will not do that if they only get a fraction of the benefits (safety improvements for their customers).

However, it is clear, society would benefit from improvement in road safety. How to align interests. A solution comes from Australia itself (home to this article), wherein the Transport Accident Commission is the statutory insurer of third party liability in Victoria, Australia. That is, Australia has socialized car insurance, and has since at least 1986.

The question is, are Australia's Roads safer? Evidence would seem to suggest yes. A study by the World Health Organization, now in Google Books (World report on road traffic injury prevention By M. M. Peden, World Health Organization) (Figure 2.4)
shows that while the Australia and US traffic fatalities per 100,000 population were quite simlar through the 1980s, since 1986, Australia's rate has declined faster than the US, to the point that Australia's rate is less than 2/3 of the US rate. In other words, if the US progressed as much as Australia, last year's US death toll on the roads would be less than 25,000 instead of 37,261 (US number for 2008), ( source). Commercial vs. state auto insurance may not be the only difference, but it is an important one.

Posted by David Levinson at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congratulations to University of Minnesota Civil Engineering and Nexus Group Alumnus Ning Li (now Senior Highway Safety Engineer, Virginia Department of Transportation, Richmond, Virginia) for receiving the ITE
Past Presidents' Award for Merit in Transportation Engineering in recognition of the paper titled "Improving Data Accuracy of Roadway Departure Crashes: Virginia Practice and its National Implications."

Posted by David Levinson at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Strib 1 critically hurt in LRT crash Coverage here as well.

"In the five years of the Hiawatha light-rail line, five people have died in crashes, with none of the deaths on a train.

The only one to involve a car was in September 2004, when an 87-year-old man who drove under the crossing arms at E. 42nd Street died after his sedan was struck by a train.

The most recent was in November 2007, when a man on foot was hit and killed at the 46th Street station.

That time without a death "shows that people are becoming more accustomed to coexisting with the light-rail line," Gibbons said.

In 2007, the most recent year with available information, the Hiawatha line reported 52 accidents per 10 million miles traveled. Nationally, 149 accidents were reported for every 10 million miles traveled."

It should be noted buses seem to have fewer fatal crashes. Buses serve about 8 times as many passenger trips than LRT in the Twin Cities (64 million vs. 8 million according to Metro Transit. This snippet appeared earlier in the year:

Metro Transit bus hits, kills woman in Minneapolis Woman hit, killed by Metro Transit bus.

Last update: February 25, 2009 - 11:01 PM

A Metro Transit bus struck and killed a pedestrian Wednesday night in Minneapolis, and the driver was unaware of the accident until the bus was a mile away, authorities said.

The unidentified woman was struck and killed at 46th Street and Minnehaha Avenue about 6:35 p.m., a witness told Minneapolis police.

Transit authorities were notified and determined that the most likely bus involved was one on northbound Route 24.

The driver was notified and stopped 20 minutes later about a mile away at 42nd Avenue and 35th Street, said MTC spokesman Bob Gibbons.

Gibbons said the driver, who was placed on paid administrative leave pending standard drug and alcohol testing, was unaware that the bus had hit anyone. A lone passenger on the bus backed up the driver's account, Gibbons said.

An autopsy is being performed by the Hennepin County medical examiner.

The accident was the third pedestrian fatality involving a bus in the past nine years. Gibbons said the last such incident was in October 2006. Before that, the last one was in January 2000.

HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA

Posted by David Levinson at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NY Times: In 2003, U.S. Withheld Data Showing Cellphone Driving Risks

In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel. They sought the study based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America's roadways.

This makes no sense, withholding data that supported an already well-known (and one might add, fairly obvious) finding. This is evidenced by the literature reviewed in the first few pages of the Official Documents

...
The former head of the highway safety agency said he was urged to withhold the research to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who had warned the agency to stick to its mission of gathering safety data but not to lobby states.

Urged by whom? Since when did publishing a report constitute lobbying?

All the more reason the Executive Branch should not conduct science, which should be left to independent organizations (like universities).

Posted by David Levinson at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

via FSJ Trapster, an iPhone application to build a and distribute a database of police speed traps. As Fake Steve Jobs says, "Fight the Power".

Posted by David Levinson at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Ars Technica: Chicago 'burb ditches red light cameras, no safety advantage

Update: A person "familiar with the matter" in Schaumburg says the city largely decided to get rid of the camera due to complaints from out-of-towners who wanted to shop at Woodfield Mall, and Schaumburg didn't want to ruin its image of being a "suburban shopping mecca."

Posted by David Levinson at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I noticed two people have been killed by garbage trucks in Minnesota in the past few weeks, and did a google search for the phrase "killed by garbage truck", it is not as uncommon as it may seem, or as it should be. A sampling from the first few pages of the Google search below:

• St. Paul artist killed by garbage truck 6/26/09

• 5-year-old killed by garbage truck in Brooklyn Center (Minnesota) (6/4/09)

• Man killed by garbage truck (Sydney) 4/10/09

• Downtown Worker Killed By Garbage Truck (Des Moines) 11/7/08

• Woman Killed by Garbage Truck in Dupont (bike) (Washington) 7/8/08

• Pedestrian on Farmingdale campus killed by garbage truck (New York) (5/26/08)

• NSW: Sydney Dance Company director killed by garbage truck (8/17/07)

• San Rafael man struck, killed by garbage truck in Sausalito 6/4/07

• Child Hit, Killed by Garbage Truck (Las Vegas) 1/27/07. From the article some more evidence:

  In December of 2004, 19-year-old Ashley Ipock was hit and killed when a Republic truck driver slammed into the back of Ashley's mother's SUV.

  In October of 2006, 3-year-old girl Ditavea Hankston was critically injured when a Republic Services track slammed into the car she was in that was stopped at a red light, crushing the back seat. Police say the driver was not paying attention and couldn't stop in time. They cited him with five traffic violations, including failure to use due care.

  The child was in the hospital for two months. When she came home she could not speak, or move on her own.
  

• Toddler Killed By Garbage Truck (Denver) 11/28/05

• Mount Pleasant bicyclist hit, killed by garbage truck. (Charleston) (12/23/03)

I could not find a systematic database of these (which is not to say no one is tracking this, I just don't know). So the question is, are these random tragedies, or is there a systematic problem (lack of safety equipment on trucks, poor driver training, poor pedestrian/bicyclist training)?

Posted by David Levinson at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From Strib: Ex-transit reporter mugged at light-rail stop

Chuck Laszewski and a friend where attacked at the Lake Street stop as they bought tickets to head downtown.

(at 12:45 pm (PM!, broad daylight) on Sunday afternoon, strangely enough, just about the time I was on the Hiawatha line going the other direction)

Posted by David Levinson at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Washington City Paper, Old Questions About Crashworthiness of Metro Cars

Following the terrible crash on the Washington Metrorail Red Line (which I have taken many times) some blame game begins:

UPDATE, 6/23, 8:15 A.M.: NTSB's Debbie Hersman this morning confirms that the the striking train was a 1000-series car and that the struck train was a mix of 3000- and 5000-series. She notes that the NTSB has "long been on record" about the crashworthiness of the 1000 series. "We recommended to WMATA to either retrofit those cars or phase them out of service," she says. "Those concerns were not addressed."

Perhaps we need to apply the environmental movement's Fix It First logic to public transport systems as well as roads and bridges.

We let our politicians get away with ribbon cuttings while core infrastructure fails.

Posted by David Levinson at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)