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Louisiana Traffic Records Data Report 2020

Dr. Helmut Schneider

September 2021

CARTS.lsu.edu

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Overview

Trends in Crashes, Fatalities & Injuries
COVID-19 Lockdown Effect - What can we learn from it?
Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol: Crashes and DWI Arrests
Occupant Protection (Crashes Only, No 2020 or 2021 Survey)
Crash Costs

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Some Notes about Interpretation of Crash Data

Regression to the mean�
Explaining versus predicting

Predicting: Does it continue to happen?
Explaining: Why did it happen?

Causation versus correlation
Confounding

Confounding of factors make it difficult to interpret which factor caused the crashes to go up or down.

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Trends

What are the trends in crashes, fatalities and injuries?
What are the trend in rates? (No VMT)
What are one-year changes?
What are changes from 2019 to 2020?
Highlights:

Interstates
Bicycles
Pedestrians
Motorcycles
Young drivers
Crash costs

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Fatalities & Crashes�by Quarter 2016-2020��2^nd Quarter Crashes declined in 2020 significantly while fatalities increased

Fatalities

Crashes

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Trends in Fatalities

The increase in fatalities from 2019 to 2020 was 13.9%.
However, fatalities have increased on average 11 fatalities per year over the past decade.
The large increase in fatalities was partly due to a drop in 2019.
2020 fatalities are more in line with trend than the 13.9% increase seems to suggest.

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Fatality Rate per 1,000 Occupants of Cars, Light Trucks, SUVs, and Vans

Fatality rate declined from 1.81 in 2006 to 1.16 in 2019.

This fatality rate increased to 1.6 in 2020.

This was likely due to COVID-19 lockdown.

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Moderate and Severe Injury�(Cars, Light Trucks, SUVs, and Vans)

Moderate-to- Severe Injuries:

Decreased from

12,957 in 2006 to 10,168 in 2020

The Moderate-to- Severe-Injury Rate:

(per 1,000 Occupants)

Decreased from

32.8 in 2006 to 26.8 in 2019.

But increased to 30.4 in 2020.

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All Crashes & Percentage Single Vehicle Crashes

Local

State

In the 2^nd quarter of 2020 daytime single vehicle crashes increased by 3.4 percentage points, while nighttime single vehicle crashes increased by 5.4 percentage points from the average percentage over the past 5 years.

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Fatalities and Crashes by Day and Night

Daytime crashes declined considerably

In the 2^nd quarter 2020.

Nighttime crashes declined less.

The number of fatalities increased during

Nighttime hours in the 2nd and 3^rd

Quarter and dropped during the day

during the 2^nd quarter.

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Day and Night Fatality Rates�

Fatalities per 1,000 Crashes are higher at night than during daytime hours.
The 2^nd quarter of 2020 had 18.2 fatalities per 1,000 crashes.
Daytime: 5 a.m-7 p.m.

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Interstate Fatalities

Fatalities

2020 Fatalities up 12% from 2019.
2020 Fatalities 2% above 5-year average.
Increase of 1.2 fatalities per year over past 10 years.

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Trends in Fatalities�Based on Parishes within Troops��

10-year increase or decrease per year

EBR – up 16 fatalities per year
New Orleans – Up 7 fatalities per year
Lafayette – down 5 fatalities per year

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Bicyclist Fatalities

2020 bicyclist fatalities up 54.5% from 2019.
2020 bicyclist fatalities 30% above 5-year average.
Alcohol involved bicyclist's death have been on average 38.9% over the past five years.
2020 injuries were down 21% from 2019.

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Motorcyclist Fatalities

Trends

Motorcyclist fatalities down 5.7%
Alcohol involved motorcyclist's death down 15.6%.
Injuries down 10.6%.
Injuries have been trending downward for the past decade.

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Motorcycles Serious Injuries

Driver Helmet Use
Injury	Used	UNK
FATAL	57	22
SUSPECTED SERIOUS	103	46
SUSPECTED MINOR	384	118
POSSIBLE INJURY	366	90
NO APPARENT INJURY	206	151

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Pedestrian Injuries and Fatalities

Pedestrian fatalities increased from 2019 to 2020. (+19%)
But they were -11.5% lower compared to 2018.
Serious injuries were very similar in the past three years.

YEAR	FATAL	NO APPARENT INJURY	POSSIBLE INJURY	SUSPECTED MINOR INJURY	SUSPECTED SERIOUS INJURY
2016	128	249	646	663	154
2017	117	168	653	678	160
2018	165	178	625	669	176
2019	122	200	603	617	179
2020	146	143	453	495	176

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Pedestrian Fatalities & Injuries

Trend

Pedestrian fatalities increased from 2019 to 2020. (+19%)
But they were -11.5% lower compared to 2018.
But 7.7 percent above 5-year average.
Serious injuries were very similar in the past three years.

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Pedestrian Injuries and Fatalities

The number of injuries during the 2^nd quarter dropped considerably in 2020, while the fatalities remained about the same as in prior quarters.

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Daytime & Nighttime Pedestrian Injuries & Fatalities

Daytime Injuries & Fatalities

Nighttime Injuries & Fatalities

Fatalities

Injuries

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Pedestrian �Fatalities by Parish

2016-2020

EBR - 79

N.O. - 64

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Pedestrian �Fatalities by Parish

2020

EBR -29

N.O. 10

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Young Drivers in Fatal Crashes

Drivers involved in Fatal Crashes

Fatal Crash Rates Per 100,000 licensed Drivers

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The four Major Contributing Factors

Alcohol

Aggressive Driving

Safety Belt

Distraction

The 5-year average is

78% of fatal crashes involves

one of the four factors.

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Cell Phone Distraction

Distracted & Inattentive Fatalities

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Aggressive Driving

Aggressive Driving is defined as either

Exceeding stated speed limit
Exceeding safe speed limit
Failure to Yield
Following too closely
Improper passing
Disregarded traffic control
Careless operation

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Fatalities & Aggressive Driving Violations

Aggressive driving violations

in fatal crashes have been between about 400 and 430 between 2011 and 2019, but increased to 458 in 2020.

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Drinking and Driving

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BAC Driver Fatalities and Surviving Driver

The odds of the fatal driver to have BAC>0 are about 5 times the odds of the surviving driver.

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Fatalities in Crashes with BAC>=0.08

Percentage is based

only on crashes with

known BAC for all drivers.

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Rate (per 100,000 lic. Drivers) Youth Drivers and Alcohol Involvement in Fatal Crashes

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DWI Fatalities and % DWI Fatalities �Involving of BAC>=0.08 by Troop Area

Size of bubble represents

total number of fatalities.

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DWI Arrests from COBRA

Rule of Thumb:

For every 1,000 hours

Saturation Patrol 4 fewer fatalities.

For every SFST conducted

3 fewer fatalities.

Source: Target of Opportunity Report.

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All Drugs (Crime Lab Data)

Includes multiple drugs.

In Crashes and Traffic Violations.

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Drugs in Fatal Crashes (Crime Lab Data)

Includes multiple drugs.

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Occupant Protection

What progress has Louisiana made over the past 20 years?

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Seat Belt Usage (1999-2019)��No Survey in 2020 & 2021)

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Percentage of occupants killed in passenger cars not wearing a seat belt increased in 2020

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Seat Belt Use among Fatalities of Passenger Vehicles

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Cost of Crashes

The Economic and Societal Impact Of Motor Vehicle Crashes,

2010, page 12, unit cost are adjusted by CPI.

Moderate, sever & fatality make up only 41% of the economic costs but 74% of quality of life costs.

For comparison Louisiana’s fiscal year 2020 executive budget was about $10 Billion with $32 billion in total spending.

Type	Average Cost per Person	Injuries	Total Cost by Injury Category in Billion Dollars	Total Cost by Injury Category in Billions Including Loss of Quality of Life
Fatal Injuries	$1,748,645	828	$1.45	$9.47
Severe Injuries	$447,275	1,516	$0.68	$2.91
Moderate Injuries	$131,218	10,767	$1.41	$6.00
Complaint Injuries	$28,474	52,152	$1.48	$3.00
Occupants with No Injury	$5,475	296,876	$1.63	$1.63
Property Damage	$7,595	262,148	$1.99	$1.99
Grand Total Cost		624,287	$8.64	$25.00
Cost per licensed Driver			$2,850
Percent Increase from past year			-5.2%

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Cost of Impaired Driving

Type	Average Cost per Person	Injuries	Total Cost by Injury Category in Billion Dollars	Total Cost by Injury Category in Billions Including Loss of Quality of Life
Fatal Injuries	$1,748,645	188	$0.33	$2.15
Severe Injuries	$447,275	69	$0.03	$0.13
Moderate Injuries	$131,218	285	$0.04	$0.16
Complaint Injuries	$28,474	956	$0.03	$0.05
Occupants with No Injury	$5,475	2,805	$0.02	$0.02
Property Damage	$7,595	3,249	$0.02	$0.02
Grand Total Cost		7,552	$0.46	$2.54
Cost per licensed Driver			$153
Percent Increase from past year

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Cost for Occupants not Wearing a Seat Belt

Type	Average Cost per Person	Injuries	Total Cost by Injury Category in Billion Dollars	Total Cost by Injury Category in Billions Including Loss of Quality of Life
Fatal Injuries	$1,748,645	286	$0.50	$3.27
Severe Injuries	$447,275	307	$0.14	$0.59
Moderate Injuries	$131,218	1,161	$0.15	$0.65
Complaint Injuries	$28,474	2,157	$0.06	$0.12
Occupants with No Injury	0		0	0
Property Damage	0		0	0
Grand Total Cost		3,911	$0.85	$4.63
Cost per licensed Driver			$281

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Summary�Explaining

2^nd quarter lockdown resulted in a significant decline in crashes in 2020 during this quarter.
However, fatalities increased in 2020.
There is an indication that driver behavior may have changed during COVID-19.
Major factors:

Fatalities involving aggressive driving increased in 2020.
Passenger vehicle occupant fatalities not wearing a seat belt increased in 2020.

Less or no change:

The data do not indicate that impaired driving increased significantly in 2020, although less testing was done.
The data do not indicate that distracted driving increased significantly in 2020.

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2^nd quarter lockdown resulted in a significant decline in crashes in 2020 during this quarter.

However, fatalities increased in 2020.

What is the explanation for that? There are two reasons.

1) The lockdown was not the same as a randomized experiment. That means during the lockdown did not reduce the drivers in a random fashion. Instead, low risk drivers were proportionally less on the road than of high risk drivers.

2) Fewer vehicles on the road increased high risk behavior.

There is an indication that behavior of some drivers may have changed during COVID-19.

Specifically two major factors played a role:

Fatalities involving aggressive driving increased in 2020.

Passenger vehicle occupant fatalities not wearing a seat belt increased in 2020.

Less or no change:

The data do not indicate that impaired driving increased significantly in 2020, although less testing was done.

The data do not indicate that distracted driving increased significantly in 2020.

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Summary�Predicting

The fatalities in 2020 followed a trend over the past decade of 11 more fatalities per year.
It appears that this trend is continuing in 2021 and beyond.

1^st & 2^nd Qtr 2021

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Q & A

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