Closing the Gap in Rural and Urban Road Deaths
Despite the decline in overall motor vehicle fatalities in the U.S., the difference between urban and rural fatality rates has stayed relatively consistent. Examination of data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System from 1994 to 2011 shows varying degrees of reductions in fatalities related to the four main causes of rural crashes (behavior, roadway environment, vehicle design, and emergency services); however in all cases, the rural fatality rates are consistently twice the magnitude of urban values. The fatality rate in 2011 for rural areas is still higher than the overall fatality rate in 1994. Future efforts to reduce traffic fatalities should focus on reducing the rural-urban fatality gap. Closing the disparity will require strategies that include adopting proven legislation-based safety improvement measures (LSIMs); state leadership and allocation of resources to the local level; local level interest and involvement; innovative integration of all 4 E’s (engineering, enforcement, education, emergency response) of traffic safety; and collaborative inter-agency and public-private participation.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB10 Transportation Safety Management.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Nguyen, Nam P
- Munnich, Lee W
- Douma, Frank
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC
- Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
- Date: 2014
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 18p
- Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Crash data; Crash locations; Fatalities; Highway safety; Legislation; Rural highways; Urban highways
- Identifier Terms: Fatality Analysis Reporting System
- Geographic Terms: United States
- Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01515477
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 14-3917
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 24 2014 8:42AM