Introduction
Progress has been made over the past 25 years to reduce the highway fatality rate from 2.76 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 1982 to 1.41 in 2006. However, while this improvement is substantial, there are still some 42,000 deaths every year in the United States due to motor vehicle crashes. Almost 60 percent of these fatalities involve vehicles leaving their lane and crashing and, of these, more than half result from vehicles leaving the road and overturning or hitting fixed objects, such as trees or utility poles.
Recognizing the need to address this challenge, national safety leaders gathered in 1996 to develop a strategic plan for preventing injuries and saving lives.
South Dakota Statistics
In South Dakota, vehicle roadway departures result in more fatalities than all other crash types. As a contributing cause to fatal crashes, it is second only to drinking drivers. The vast majority of the roadway departures are single-vehicle events.
Source: South Dakota Strategic Highway Safety Plan.
AASHTO, along with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the Transportation Research Board, convened a meeting of national safety experts representing driver, vehicle, and highway issues. Together, they produced the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), which identifies 22 goals to pursue to achieve a significant reduction in highway crash fatalities. One of the hallmarks of the plan is to approach safety problems in a comprehensive manner.
Missouri's System-Wide Solutions
Missouri DOT has focused on lane departure countermeasures over the past three years, resulting in a 25 percent reduction in lane departure related fatalities from 2005 to 2007. System-wide safety solutions they incorporated include:
- Requiring a minimum four-foot paved shoulder on major roads
- Providing edge line and centerline rumble stripes for all major roads, as well as for minor roads with a history of crashes
- Using six-inch stripes for all edge line and multi-lane skips on all major roads
- Using curve speed plaques for every curve/turn sign to indicate appropriate speeds
- Providing guardrail and median guard cable delineation on major roads
- Installing emergency reference markers every 0.2 miles on Interstates
- Upgrading signs for better visibility
“Missouri has not solved the problem of highway fatalities, but we are taking major steps and producing tremendous results in driving down the number of people dying on our roadways. ”
Pete Rahn, Director,
Missouri DOT
The SHSP provides guidance and direction for the national deployment of effective countermeasures in areas where they can have the greatest impact. To advance its implementation, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) developed a series of Implementation Guides published collectively as NCHRP Report 500. Each guide provides definitive information—data, strategies, countermeasures, and supporting documentation—for each emphasis area in the broad arenas of drivers, special highway users, vehicles, highways, emergency management services, and management.
In 2003, AASHTO launched a “Lead States” initiative to help identify proven, cost-effective strategies for national deployment. States volunteered to develop comprehensive highway safety plans addressing one or more emphasis areas identified in the SHSP. Their plans establish specific statewide goals for reducing fatalities in one or more emphasis areas—by a certain number and within a specific time frame—using strategies that are cost-effective and acceptable to the public. From the results achieved in these states, all states will gain a better understanding of strategies effective for addressing specific highway safety challenges.
Further, at the AASHTO Annual Meeting in October 2007, the Board of Directors passed a resolution with a goal to cut in half the number of highway fatalities within two decades. In order to achieve the newly adopted goal, DOTs are adapting and implementing their SHSPs with this goal in mind. Using the NCHRP 500 Series reports and other innovative improvements, states have made significant reductions in crashes and fatalities, in many cases with relatively low costs.
The purpose of this report is to highlight low-cost, quick-implementation strategies transportation agencies can use to reduce lane-departure collisions and resulting injuries and fatalities. Based on examples from states that have successfully implemented these efforts, states can evaluate effective countermeasures and be proactive in achieving the goal of halving fatalities in two decades and moving toward zero fatalities.
Tennessee Statistics
In 2005, lane-departure-related crashes in Tennessee accounted for over 833 fatalities,
approximately 66 percent of all the fatalities statewide.
Source: Tennessee Strategic Highway Safety Plan
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