If you are at all interested in pedestrian safety issues or are looking for possible funding for your traffic calming project, you should know about the federal Safe Routes To School (SRTS) program. The idea is to improve the ability for children to walk or ride their bikes to school. Not a bad idea for a generation that has gotten used to being chauffeured from one place to another. The program offers training, education, events and funding.

Of course, a big part of that funding goes towards grants that states can use to improve traffic safety. I recently came across an article that explained how the city of New Hope, Minnesota did just that.

With an SRTS grant of $31,200 the Minnesota Department of Transportation implemented a variety of actions to slow traffic around its Sunny Hollow Elementary School. Since the school is surrounded by busy streets, few of the students walk or bike to school. During the morning commute, local traffic is congested with parents driving to school in order to deliver their kids to the front of the building.

While a portion of the grant will be used for training and education, the majority of the funds will be used to purchase three radar speed signs. The signs will be installed next to current speed limit signs and are intended to remind drivers to check their own speed and make sure they are within the limits.

Sounds simple, but it works. A variety of government studies have shown that radar speed displays are particularly effective around neighborhood streets and school yards.

Next step? The city plans to apply for additional grants to fund similar projects near other elementary schools in the state. 

Truckee California, Atlanta Georgia and Winnipeg, Canada are a few of the latest cities to deploy radar speed signs in a big way. The growing acceptance of these traffic-calming displays is particularly noteworthy given the correlating decline in the popularity of speedbumps and radar speed cameras.

radar speed signs' increasing popularity

According to Sam Katz, the mayor of Winnipeg, their recent installation of seven solar-powered radar speed signs is “anything but a cash grab,” – one of the major concerns of Winnepeg citizens opposed to speed cameras. Studies show that radar speed signs are highly effective at slowing cars without being obtrusive or financially threatening (spelled t.i.c.k.e.t). Katz made it clear that none of the new displays will take pictures or be used to issue tickets.

In California, the city of Truckee took advantage of funding provided by the federal Safe Routes to School program to buy and install six flashing crosswalk signs and radar speed signs. The displays are being permanently mounted along a busy school route and are intended to be operational in time for the 2010-11 school year.

And then last year, residents of Wildwood, Georgia, a city just North of downtown Atlanta, used the data collected by a radar speed sign to convince local police that there was a major speeding problem around their local school zones. Surprising to many who analyzed follow up data, that the majority of speeders were local residents. This, however, coincides with findings of numerous traffic-calming studies and highlights one of the key reasons radar speed signs work so well. Most speeders are just distracted drivers. Radar speed signs are an unobtrusive way to redirect driver attention to their current driving conditions. And that doesn’t require photos or ticketing.

Smile-you're on Arizona camera!

In our last post, we discussed the rising countrywide objection to radar speed cameras. While citizens are forming protests throughout the U.S., it seems that the epicenter of activities consistently comes from the good citizens of Arizona. I now know why.

Last week, a colleague and I had the opportunity (?) to conduct business in Arizona. We flew into Phoenix and then drove about 200 miles northwest to a little spit of a town in the dessert called Ash Fork. During the three-hour drive up Hwy 17 and across Hwy 89, we passed thousands of cactus, lots of sand, a few dead coyote carcasses and, every once in awhile, a passenger car or two. Oh yes, we also passed about 29 police cars (we started counting them) hiding off somewhere on the side of the virtually deserted highway route.  

We also passed one other thing. Out there in the middle of nowhere, where seeing other cars is so rare that it’s apparently customary to wave as you go by, we drove by several red light cameras! That’s right.  Apparently, the jackrabbits are tying up the state’s phone lines calling in complaints about speeders.  Either that, or I suspect that these cameras in the dessert are for no other purpose than to generate revenue for government coffers.

It’s understandable to me that a large number of Arizona citizens are outraged by this practice. While speeding can be a serious issue, so too can be the abusive and over zealous use of obtrusive technology.  And it looks like the good guys may have one a major victory.

As of this week, Arizona has decided to cancel its program to place radar speed cameras along Phoenix highways and in vans parked across the state. According to a recent news article, July 15th will be the final day for the 78 fixed and mobile photo-enforcement monitors employed by the state’s Department of Public Safety.

This doesn’t end the use of photo speed cameras entirely, as local government photo-enforcement contracts will still be in effect. However, in addition to the canceling the Phoenix-area project, there is a bill before the state’s governor that would also ban the use of photo speed cameras within 600 feet of a posted speed-limit change (except around school zones). If passed, the law would go into effect the end of July.

As we mentioned in our last post, speeding drivers has become a growing concern, especially around school zones, work zones, neighborhoods and other places where pedestrian and driver safety is at particular risk. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. More importantly, there are alternative ways to effectively slow cars and increase safety that do not conjure up feelings of Big Brother.  We of course, are fans of speedcheck radar speed signs. They are proven to be highly effective and do not require objectionable intrusions or pickpockets tactics.

To many Arizonians, the speed cameras had little to do with increasing safety and much to do with generating revenue.  In many cases, equipment providers are allotted a percentage of the income that these camera systems generate for the city/county/state. Now that’s just asking for abuse.

There is a growing opposition to the use of photo radar cameras that is sweeping the nation. Organizations such as Photo Radar Scam, CameraFraud and ACAPR are popping up across the country with one mission in mind – to make the use of photo radar illegal for traffic enforcement applications.

Over the last few years, their voices appear to be getting louder – and government officials are starting to take notice. Courts in Alaska, for instance, struck down as unconstitutional, the state’s use of photo radar signs. A judge in Denver, Colorado ruled that tickets issued on the bases of radar cameras were not legal and citizens in several cities in Maryland, Ohio and Texas recently began petition drives to ban the use of these devices.

So far, grass routes opposition to red light cameras has gotten them banned in over a dozen states including Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Wisconsin.

Group like Photo Radar Scam say their beef with the traffic enforcement technology is not about interfering with their ability to break traffic laws, but instead, about their effectiveness at reducing accidents, the legal constitutionality of their use, and their intrusive nature. More importantly, they believe photo cameras are used simply as a means of generating revenue for the cities where they are being used.

According to a recent news report, states like New York are using speed cameras to offset budget deficits. Governor David Paterson recently announced that he planned to install 50 new radar vans in the state of New York in hopes of generating $96 million in profit by 2012.

So where does this leave speedcheck radar speed signs?

Very well thank you. One of the nice things about speedcheck signs is that they typically do not take pictures of passing drivers or send speeding data to law enforcement for ticketing purposes. While many of these displays collect traffic data, they record only broad statistical information that can be used to calculate the effectiveness of the signs.

And they are effective. These unobtrusive displays simply remind drivers to check their speed and adjust accordingly. Several recent studies have shown that radar speed displays are one of the most effective means of slowing cars around neighborhoods, school zones, work zones and other places where pedestrian safety is of particular concern.

So when you see a radar speed sign, slow down and smile. You are NOT on candid camera but you are helping keep our streets safe.

I CAME ACROSS A study by Safe Kids USA that looked at distracted drivers in school zones. While it’s no surprise that distracted drivers are more likely to cause or be involved in an accident, some of the specifics noted in the report were surprising to me. For instance:

Fact. Drivers using a phone are as likely to get in an accident as drunk drivers ( .08 blood alcohol content). 

Fact. Drivers dialing a phone are six times more likely to be involved in an accident. 

Fact. Drivers texting on their phones are 23 times more likely to be involved in an accident. 

Fact. Drivers talking on a phone are four times more likely to be in an accident.      

Fact. Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated that in 2003, cell phone use was a factor in 636,000 crashes, 12,000 major injuries and 2,600 deaths.

But this post isn’t about bashing cell phone use. It’s about the impact of driving distractions in general and what we can do about it to increase pedestrian safety.

In the Safe Kids study, trained observers were posted in school zones located in 15 states throughout the U.S. They observed each car that passed through the school zone, making note of the drivers’ sex, the type of cars they were driving and any marked evidence of driver distractions. Of the 41,426 total drivers observed, about 7,000 of them (1 in 6) were distracted by something – eating, reaching in back, talking on a phone etc.

Specific findings include:

• Cell phone use was the number one leading distracter 
• Men and woman drivers were abut equally distracted.
• Distracted drivers appeared more frequently in school zones without flashing lights.
• Drivers of SUVs, pickup trucks and other large vehicles tended to be distracted more than car drivers.
• Drivers not using their seat belts were 35% more likely to be distracted than those who did use seat belts.

Why does any of this matter? I suggest two reasons:

1. Distractions lead to more accidents as well as a higher severity of accidents when crashes do occur.       

2. Traffic calming methods that interrupt diver distractions during critical times (such as while passing through school zones( are particularly important in reducing accidents.

As the Safe Kids report points out, a distraction that takes the driver’s mind off of his or her driving environment can have a huge impact on accident avoidance. By the time you calculate how long it takes for a driver to see a child run into the street, for the brain to process the situation and for the driver to make a decision on how to avoid the hazard, a car traveling just 30 mph will have traveled about 33 feet. Once you add driver reaction time and the time it takes the car to stp, it has now traveled about 104 feet from when the danger was first spotted.

From Safe Kids USA

That’s on a dry road…with clear conditions…without driver distractions. For each second that the driver is distracted, you can add another 33 feet to that stopping distance.

Radar speed signs, variable speed limit signs and violation alert signs are all bout refocusing a driver’s attention away from distractions and back onto his or her own driving speed and road conditions. And they work.

A variety of government studies show that radar speedcheck signs are one of the most highly effective means of reducing accidents in school zones, work zones and other places where pedestrian safety is of particular concern.

And now we know why.

If interested, you can find a nice collection of links to many of these government traffic calming studies at www.informationdisplay.com.

Radar Speed Signs Increasing Work Zone Safety

I RECENTLY HAD a chance to speak with Tad Blanton, a field operations supervisor for Medford, Oregon’s Public Works. He manages four crews that work year round on every type of public works project you can imagine – from underground maintenance to structural repairs, paving and concrete work. Many of the projects take place outdoors alongside moving traffic.

He told me that about three years ago, he got a call from someone in the city’s electrical repairs department. The guy had just seen a demonstration of a speedcheck radar speed sign from Information Display Company and thought Tad should check it out himself…and he did.

After the demo, Tad spoke with the folks at IDC and arranged to have one of their speedcheck displays loaned out for a few weeks. Tad said that providence brought the radar speed sign to his department when it did. They were just about to begin work on a storm drain repair project that would have them in the middle of heavy traffic – traffic that could not be shut down or detoured.

Tad told me that his crew came back entirely surprised and enthusiastic about the radar speed display. They told him that the difference the display made in slowing cars and increasing safety was (and I quote) “absolutely unbelievable.”

Of course, the city has since purchased several speedcheck radar speed signs from Information Display Company. When I spoke to Tad, he told me that even the original speed display – the one they first received as a loaner -  is still working as well as it did the first day they used it - and that was three years ago.

Fact is, the Federal Highway Administration reports that nearly 1,000 people are killed and more than 40,000 injured each year as a result of motor vehicle crashes in work zones. The majority of these cases involve excessive speeds.

Add to this the fact that an estimated 20 percent of our national highway system is currently under construction, and you have a lot of potentially hazardous work zones (about 3,000 on U.S. highways alone) Add to that thousands more including work being done on public streets, around construction sites and on public works projects, and were looking at thousands of work zones across the U.S. and thousands of workers and drivers at increased risk.

While we all look forward to getting America back to work and having some upgrades made to our nation’s infrastructure, let’s not forget about the safety element. Tad and the city of Medford would agree that radar speed signs could have a huge impact on keeping both workers and drivers safer in work zones.

WELCOME TO A new year!  2010.  Sheesh!  Is it just me or does simply saying 2010 sound futuristic?  Face it.  The “future” is today. We are seeing promises of tomorrow become mainstream realities. If you don’t believe me, just go see Avatar 3D Imax or make a purchase at an Apple (computer) store…or go for a drive.

We are now entering a new era of driving where technology is taking an increasingly larger role in getting us safely to our destination. It’s all about ITS or Intelligent Traffic Systems. If you haven’t yet heard the term, I suggest you say it now a few times to yourself, because before the year is over, it will become a commonly used idiom for most Americans.

Given its relative newness, the term ITS has yet to be firmly solidified within the marketplace and so its currently being used for a fairly wide range of traffic management-related implementations. At the recent World Congress and Exhibition on Intelligent Transportation Systems and Services held this past September, the term was used to describe among other applications:

• Synchronized traffic lights coupled with active displays that tell drivers the optimal speed they should be traveling.
• In-car responder systems that notify emergency personnel of traffic accidents.
• Variable message signs that work with street sensors to instruct drivers of traffic accidents ahead, current drive times to various locations or alternative route suggestions. 
• Speed cameras that automatically record the license plate of traffic law violators.
• Instant drive-by toll collection technology.
• Emergency vehicle detectors that recognize approaching police cars, ambulances and fire trucks and automatically adjust traffic lights to give these vehicles the right-of-way.

As you can see from these examples, some ITS implementations are certain to cause controversy. In fact, the rapid increased interest in the technology is receiving support in the U.S. from various homeland security-related organizations that see a potential use of ITS for both surveillance and as a way to quickly and easily evacuate citizens in the event of an emergency.

Unclogging gridlock with Intelligent Traffic Signs

Information Display Company has already taken a leading role in marrying its display expertise with ITS technology. It is one of the first companies to offer traffic light synchronization displays and variable message signs. They are also working closely with others to adapt their radar display know-how with traffic monitoring systems. The result will be solutions that give motorists real-time information that will help them reach their destinations as quickly and safely as possible.

Stay tuned for updates.