Texas A&M Transportation Institute» traffic safety conference

Safety Experts Focus on Motorcycle Fatalities

Tobey — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 17:10:55 +0000

Sixteen percent of all vehicle fatalities in Texas involve motorcyclists, according to David Strickland, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A recently licensed motorcyclist himself, Strickland was a speaker during the opening session of the fourth annual Traffic Safety Conference in San Antonio this summer.

Described as Motorcycling 101, The Course for Motorcycle Riders teaches both new and experienced riders how to safely operate a motorcycle. Riders seeking a motorcycle license in Texas are required to take The Course.

“I love motorcyclists, and I love motorcycling, but motorcyclists don’t necessarily love me,” Strickland told the crowd of more than 200 law-enforcement personnel, transportation researchers, policy makers, public health officials, traffic engineers and other safety professionals from around the state. “I will tell anybody: wear a helmet, wear the right clothing, and get yourself into a riding class. Because statistically speaking, you’re on two wheels, so you’re at a physical disadvantage. Why stack the odds against yourself even more?”

Strickland informed the group that motorcyclists also have a much higher rate of riding impaired when compared to passenger-vehicle drivers. And although Texas crash fatality rates have steadily decreased over the last several years, that’s not the case where motorcycles are concerned. “The fatality rate with motorcycles is really keeping Texas back in term of overall fatalities,” Strickland said.

“While we saw a decline in motorcycle deaths for the first time in over a decade in 2009, we must continue our efforts to promote sharing the road safely and watching out for motorcycles,” says Research Scientist Patricia Turner of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Center for Transportation Safety. “The most recent statistics show that motorcycle fatalities increased by 10 percent, from 435 in 2010 to 479 in 2011.”

An entire session of this year’s Traffic Safety Conference was dedicated to motorcycle safety. Speakers for the session included Turner and Jude Schexnyder, chair of the Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition.

“Motorcyclists are 25 more times more likely than passengers in cars to be killed in an accident, and they are five times more likely to be injured,” TxDOT Deputy Executive Director John Barton said during his speech at the opening session of the conference.

Barton informed the crowd that he was involved in a crash with a motorcyclist in 1997. “I flat out did not see them,” he said, adding that motorcycle safety programs like Share the Road are necessary. “It’s important for all of us to remind each other that we have to pay attention and we have to take a second look.”

LookLearnLive.org

Created by TTI in 2009, the Look, Learn, Live motorcycle safety campaign was launched by the Texas Department of Transportation to address the rising number of motorcycle fatalities in the state. Visit http://looklearnlive.org or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TexasMotorcycleSafety.

LookLearnLive.org promotes motorcycle safety through awareness and training for riders and motorists alike. Since its launch in 2009, the site has become a clearinghouse for all aspects of motorcycling including safety, legislation and riding events. Riders are also encouraged to visit the LookLearnLive.org Facebook page for timely announcements about riding safety.

“LookLearnLive.org is the go-to source for motorcycle safety in Texas,” says site administrator Michelle Hoelscher, Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) communications specialist. “We’re reaching out to both motorcycle riders and motorists to say, ‘Be more aware of each other. It’s dangerous out there.’”

Besides informing visitors about safety statistics and best practices for maximizing safety (like looking left twice before entering an intersection), the site also promotes personal responsibility for riders through the “I Ride for Tomorrow” initiative. A form on the site asks bikers to accept personal responsibility for riding safely, legally and soberly.

Motorcycle Fatalities Focus of Safety Experts

r-davenport@tti.servers — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:30:53 +0000

Sixteen percent of all vehicle fatalities in Texas involve motorcyclists, according to David Strickland, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A recently licensed motorcyclist himself, Strickland was a speaker during the opening session of the 4^th annual Traffic Safety Conference in San Antonio this summer.

“I love motorcyclists and I love motorcycling, but motorcyclists don’t necessarily love me,” he told the crowd of more than 200 law-enforcement personnel, transportation researchers, policy makers, public health officials, traffic engineers and other safety professionals from around the state. “I will tell anybody, wear a helmet, wear the right clothing, and get yourself into a riding class. Because statistically speaking, you’re on two wheels, so you’re at a physical disadvantage. Why stack the odds against yourself even more?”

Strickland informed the group that motorcyclists also have a much higher rate of riding impaired when compared to passenger-vehicle drivers. And, although Texas crash fatality rates have steadily decreased over the last several years, that’s not the case where motorcycles are concerned. “The fatality rate with motorcycles is really keeping Texas back in term of overall fatalities.”

“While we saw a decline in motorcycle deaths for the first time in over a decade in 2009, we must continue our efforts to promote sharing the road safely and watching out for motorcycles,” says Patricia Turner of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Center for Transportation Safety. “The most recent statistics show that motorcycle fatalities increased by 10 percent, from 435 in 2010 to 479 in 2011.”

Barton informed the crowd that he was involved in a crash with a motorcyclist in 1997. “I flat out did not see them,” he said, adding that motorcycle safety programs like Share the Road, are necessary. “It’s important for all of us to remind each other that we have to pay attention and we have to take a second look.”

For more information about how to help ensure motorcycling is safe for both rider and driver, check out Look Learn Live.org. Also, visit and “Like” our Look Learn Live.org Facebook page.

Safer Roads, More Work Highlighted at TTI Safety Conference

r-davenport@tti.servers — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 20:41:10 +0000

Sen. Steve Ogden speaks at the Traffic Safety Conference.

With the theme of improving safety on highways in Texas and across the nation, the leader of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the retiring state legislator known as “Senator Safety” were featured speakers for the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) 4th annual Statewide Traffic Safety Conference, June 4-6, in San Antonio.

David Strickland, NHTSA Administrator, told the group of more than 200 that the nation now has its lowest number of traffic fatalities since 1949. “Those successes frankly pale to the fact of how many people we still lose. It is still vexing for all of us that when we do make gains we still have that many more people we have to reach. The job is never, ever done,” he told the group of traffic safety professionals, pointing to the fact that 33,000 people die in crashes annually nationwide.

Sen. Steve Ogden, who was the luncheon speaker later in the day, also acknowledged the decreasing fatality rate in Texas, but with a note of caution. “Over the last 10 years our fatality rate has dropped by 25 percent.” It’s still a lot. Ogden noted that more than 500 fewer Texans are dying on the roadways than just 10 years ago. “We have made a lot of progress. But, obviously we are not done.”

Ogden, who announced his retirement months earlier, said he began vigorously supporting traffic safety legislation 12 years ago when he realized that it did not seem to be a priority. At the end of his speech, Ogden was honored by the Department of Public Safety, the Texas Department of Transportation and TTI.

NHTSA Administrator David Strickland speaks at the Traffic Safety Conference.

“Very few of our elected officials have really been dedicated or given a high priority to safety in our state,” TTI Agency Director Dennis Christiansen said during his tribute. “Senator Ogden clearly has.” Among other measures, Ogden is credited with safety improvements on rural highways, supporting the installation of cable barriers in highway medians, and creating the Center for Transportation Safety at TTI. “He consistently kept roadway safety in the minds of everyone in the legislature,” Christiansen said.

In fact, the conference slogan for 2012, “Saving Lives: Nothing’s More Important,” was borrowed form a speech Ogden gave several years earlier.

The conference attracts law enforcement, transportation safety researchers, policy makers, public health officials, traffic engineers and other safety professionals from around the state. This year, conference goers attended sessions that focused on impaired driving, distracted driving, teen driving, motorcycle safety, wrong-way driving, Texas speed limits changes and numerous other topics.

“I don’t know of anything more tragic than that knock on the door in the middle of the night when somebody’s got to tell someone their loved one just lost their life. All of you in this room that are involved in protecting the public, thank you. It’s a big deal,” Ogden said, receiving a standing ovation following his speech.

Prominent Speakers Part of Statewide Traffic Safety Conference

Chris Sasser — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:38:00 +0000

With speakers that include the administrator of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the retiring state legislator known by many as “Senator Safety,” the 2012 Statewide Traffic Safety Conference in San Antonio June 4–6 is expected to be well attended.

“We are honored that NHTSA Administrator David Strickland and State Sen. Steve Ogden will be our main speakers this year,” Center for Transportation Safety (CTS) Director John Mounce said of the upcoming conference. The annual event attracts public policy makers, traffic safety practitioners, law enforcement, traffic engineers, public health officials and many other safety professionals from all over the state.

“The conference seems to become more relevant each year as we learn from each other and share what is new and what is working in other places,” Mounce said. “We all have important individual roles in traffic safety, but when we team up for a common cause, we can’t help but become more successful.”

According to the NHTSA website, Strickland, who took office Jan. 4, 2010, “has overseen the development of the first national fuel-efficiency program, helped establish ejection mitigation requirements for automakers, and brought national public focus to child passenger safety issues including the threat of heat stroke from hot cars and back-over deaths and injuries.” NHTSA is the nation’s principal agency dedicated solely to highway safety.

Ogden, who was first elected to the Texas Senate in 1997, authored the legislation that created CTS at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) more than 10 years ago. He is a strong and vocal proponent of traffic safety. Ogden recently announced his decision not to seek reelection after his term ends in January 2013.

This year’s conference theme, “Saving Lives: Nothing’s More Important,” was borrowed from a line in a speech Ogden gave at TTI several years ago.

The 2012 Statewide Traffic Safety Conference will begin with a welcome reception and exhibitor showcase June 4. The opening session will take place the next morning prior to a full day of numerous breakout sessions. Conference topics will include discussions and examinations of distracted driving, impaired driving, new speed limits in Texas, motorcycle safety, wrong-way driving and teen driving safety.

The closing session of the conference will be a round-table discussion by invited Texas legislators on what they believe will be the main traffic safety issues for the 2013 Legislative Session.

For more information, visit the conference website.

Making Safety a Cultural Priority

Tobey — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:49:43 +0000

Safety Conference Fuels Lifesaving Passion

According to the Texas Traffic Safety Culture Survey, more than 80 percent of respondents say that texting while driving is a bigger problem today, while more than half perceive that aggressive driving has gotten worse.

For those attending the 2011 Traffic Safety Conference in Austin this spring — hosted by the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) Center for Transportation Safety (CTS) — the substantial decline in Texas traffic deaths over the last two years, while encouraging, just isn’t enough.

The facts: in 2009, there were 11 percent fewer fatalities in Texas compared to the year before, representing a 19 percent decline since 2003. (Preliminary figures for 2010 point to a further decline.) That’s impressive considering the dramatic increase in both the Texas population and vehicle miles traveled.

“The Texas fatality rate is now at the lowest level since the state began calculating fatality rates in 1935,” Director Terry Pence of the Texas Department of Transportation’s Traffic Safety Section told attendees. “Almost 94 percent of Texans are buckling up every time they drive.” He also credited safer roads and vehicles, public safety campaigns, and people driving less because of the economy and higher gas prices.

Janice Brown, the Federal Highway Administration’s Texas administrator, credited the state’s $1.2 billion bond program for improving safety. “These investments are paying off,” she said.

Both Brown and Pence pointed out that more than 3,000 people, the second highest number of fatalities in the nation, still die each year on Texas roadways. Alcohol is a factor in almost 40 percent of these deaths.

“Every single one of our crashes where someone dies is avoidable and preventable,” said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. “Rarely is it a mechanical failure. The majority of the time it’s about behavior.”

In fact, changing driving behaviors in order to improve safety seemed to be the underlying theme of the two-day conference. The breakout sessions covered topics involving pedestrians, teen and elderly drivers, work zone and motorcycle safety, freight operations, and child passenger occupant protection. Other issues included enhancing prosecution of DWI, speed management, safety belts and distracted driving.

TTI Assistant Research Scientist Joel Cooper pointed to the enormous toll that inattention has on safety. “Twenty percent of [nationwide] injury crashes in 2009 involved driver distraction, representing 5,474 deaths that same year. I believe this number is an understatement, but still the number is pretty staggering,” Cooper said.

Attendees agreed that changing the culture is necessary in order to change behavior but also acknowledged it will be a time-consuming, difficult process.

“Before, it was cool to have your cell phone in the car,” TxDOT Media Relations Officer Kelli Petras said during the closing session. “It was cool to always be connected, and now we are trying to change that attitude back into ‘it’s dangerous…you can cause an crash.’”

Petras was part of a round-table discussion designed to get other perspectives about traffic safety. She was joined by former Texas State Representative and Senator David Cain, National President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Laura Dean-Mooney, CEO of EnviroMedia Social Marketing Valerie Davis and Associated Press Reporter Jim Vertuno.

At the conclusion of the conference, CTS Director John Mounce thanked the closing session round-table members. He borrowed a line from the luncheon speaker, Bella Dinh-Zarr, as he urged unity in the effort to change driver behavior in Texas.

“If you want to act quickly, act alone. If you want to go far, act together,” Mounce told the crowd. “We’ve got a great distance to go, but together we are going to get there. We are going to save some lives, and that’s what we are here for.”

Safety Culture Survey

In one of the first-of-its-kind surveys conducted in an individual state, the Texas Transportation Institute’s Center for Transportation Safety determined that more than a third of Texas drivers feel less safe on the roadways than they did five years ago.

More than a third of Texas drivers feel less safe on the roadways than they did five years ago, according to the Texas Traffic Safety Culture Survey.

The Texas Traffic Safety Culture Survey was conducted to gain an understanding of drivers’ attitudes at a time when fatality rates have decreased. Despite the statistics, respondents feel that aggressive driving, distracted driving and speeding have gotten worse over the last five years.

More than 80 percent of respondents say that texting while driving is a bigger problem today, while more than half perceive that aggressive driving has gotten worse.

Nearly 1,200 people took part in the survey at 10 Texas Department of Public Safety driver’s license offices across the state, reflecting a cross section of the adult population. Regarding views related to laws in Texas, researchers found:

Supporters of a law to ban cell-phone use while driving outnumber opponents by a two-to-one margin.
Supporters also outnumber opponents when it comes to the use of red-light cameras, sobriety checkpoints and requiring the use of ignition interlock devices for drivers with DWI convictions.
Seven out of 10 favor a law that would require all motorcyclists to wear helmets.
Respondents were generally opposed to raising the state’s gasoline tax to pay for new roads.

Researchers will repeat the survey to determine if drivers’ attitudes are changing over time.

For more information:

Katie Womack
(979) 845-5153
kwomack@tamu.edu

Access the survey results online at http://tti.tamu.edu/group/cts/files/2010/11/TTI-Safety-Culture.pdf

For more information:

John Mounce
(979) 458-3346
j-mounce@tamu.edu

2008 Traffic Safety Conference showcases gains, needs

Chris Sasser — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:44:40 +0000

Steven Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board delivers remarks during the opening session.

The inaugural gathering of traffic safety professionals, policymakers and practitioners was a rousing success, according to John Mounce, director of the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) Center for Transportation Safety. Mounce moderated the conference.

The 2008 Traffic Safety Conference was held in Houston, Texas, Nov. 17-19, 2008. TTI hosted the event in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

“We achieved our primary goal of bringing together various constituencies devoted to reducing fatalities on our highways,” explains Mounce. “Everyone at that conference was, in some way, a problem solver.”

The conference began with a video on crashes designed to show just how important getting the word out about traffic safety is. A recurring theme throughout was the importance of education and increased awareness in motivating individuals to take responsibility and help create a “safety culture” on the roadway. This term refers to an emerging philosophy that acknowledges the idea that engineering innovations and law enforcement can only do so much to keep drivers, pedestrians and riders safe. What is ultimately needed is a change in the way we, as individual users of the transportation system, view and use the system itself.

Speakers addressed a myriad of traffic safety issues, including impaired driving, motorcycle safety, young drivers, law enforcement, federal initiatives, alcohol/drug traffic offender adjudication, red-light camera enforcement, occupant protection issues for Texas and various emerging traffic safety issues.

Carlos Lopez, traffic operations director for TxDOT, noted that Texas is the only state where traffic deaths have actually declined five years in a row, even though the state’s population jumped from more than 20 million to more than 23 million between 2001 and 2006. Yet motorcycle-related fatalities have increased dramatically, as noted by Dr. Jeff Michael of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Speaker after speaker noted that there is clearly room for improving safety in the Lone Star State, and motivating individual behavioral change is key to making that happen.

Steven Polunsky, a member of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, speaks while Jim Murphy, a member of the House Transportation Committee, looks on.

Texas State Representative Jim Murphy, member of the House Transportation Committee, spoke in the final session, devoted to state legislative issues. He reviewed the legislative agenda for 2009 and discussed the political realities that surround implementing safety solutions. Sometimes it’s not technical knowledge or even political will that’s the driving force in improving traffic safety. Sometimes it’s the “power of persistence” of the public in setting safety as a priority through legislation that really drives it forward.

“Many attendees, from many professions and levels of responsibility, were very complimentary of the forum and information shared here,” explains Mounce. “Based on the attendance and responses from attendees, I believe the next conference will be even more successful.”

Texas A&M Transportation Institute» traffic safety conference

Safety Experts Focus on Motorcycle Fatalities

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Motorcycle Fatalities Focus of Safety Experts

Safer Roads, More Work Highlighted at TTI Safety Conference

Prominent Speakers Part of Statewide Traffic Safety Conference

Making Safety a Cultural Priority

Safety Conference Fuels Lifesaving Passion

Safety Culture Survey

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2008 Traffic Safety Conference showcases gains, needs

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