It was nice to see the Transportation Safety Action Plan on the front page today, but the way it, and possibly the MPO, is defining "safety" is problematic.
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| Front page today |
It ranks "most dangerous intersections" by count of crashes involving "serious injury" or death.
In an article just a week ago on Police shootings, the paper took care to discuss rates rather than counts.
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| A week ago |
While the count of Police shootings in Portland is higher than in Salem or Eugene, the proportion to residents in Salem is lower. Rates are significant.
Similarly, the "most dangerous intersections" have lots of car traffic, and even if the rates of crashes were lower than at other sites, the total count of crashes will be higher.
A focus on raw counts of crashes will not always give an accurate sense of danger.
There is also the matter of asking dangerous for whom?
The crash counts are weighed towards those inside of vehicles, protected by sheet metal, safety belts, and air bags. The whole regulatory environment for cars and roads is biased towards occupant safety. Other road users, non-occupants, those not as encased or protected, are more vulnerable, and do not yet enjoy the same regulatory protections.
Ranking danger this way by counts also does not account for those who avoid places because they feel unsafe, and therefore depress counts of travelers and counts of incidents. Dangerous places repel people walking and rolling. When they have a choice, they don't even try to walk or roll there. The walks and bike rides not taken are meaningful. Absence also is an index for danger.
Finally, speed and total vehicle miles traveled correlate with danger and crash counts and rates, and more visibility should be given to those factors.
Fortunately some of the comments in the article address some of this. Hopefully a more nuanced and less autoist notion of danger and safety will emerge as the study and its analysis unfold.
Previously on the Safety Action Plan:
1 comment:
East Lancaster Neighborhood Association (ELNA) unfortunately is the location for two of the most dangerous intersections in Salem. It is something that our organization is going to pursue. We want to know why those intersections continue to be a problem even though the City has spent over $13 million to make them safer over the last decade or so.
We have complained in the past about the lights to staff to no avail, so I am going to get permission to raise the issue up to the City Council level.
The Mayor lives in this neighborhood. He did a lot of excellent advocacy for Fisher Road safety. I hope he can do the same for these intersections.
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