Blaming "human error" vs. designing steering columns that don't impale drivers, or designing guardrails that don't cause cars to ricochet into the opposite lane

Does the onomatopoeitc quality of the word "crash" influence or manipulate people's perceptions of this word, versus other terms like "collision"?

How can we compensate for driver behaviour (by providing airbags and seatbelts) without consequently making the environment less safe for vulnerable road users outside of vehicles?

How can we improve people's mindset for safety? It is always "i am a good driver and others are awful." Some opportunities for positive driving assessment and raising safety awareness?

In public health we have an axiom that the healthy choice should be the easy choice. It should be easier to do the safe thing vs. the dangerous thing.

What is the role of insurance companies in not giving better rates for systemically safer conditions

Many of the worst freeway accidents are due to weather. What efforts are being made to shut down on ramps in advance of weather events that can be anticipated?

Glenn: In other contexts, they do! e.g. homeowner's insurance discount for being close to a fire hydrant

while I support that reducing risk factor should be the primary goal and view when it comes to an incident. An example you gave was someone tripping over a board and would you fire that person or fix the board? What if that person was abandoning procedure or policy and moving dangerously through the facility? Yes the board should be fixed, but individuals have to be capable of recognizing hazards. If they fail to recognize there is a certain level of human error that is still present.

Should the term "crash" be used for collisions on roadways that result in death, but do not involve any motor vehicles? For instance, someone jumping off a building and landing on a public roadway; or two horse-and-buggies that collide on a public roadway and result in death (a very real possibility in Amish communities such as Lancaster County, PA), etc.

Another distinguishing feature is passive vs active. Seat belts require an active act of putting them on, while air bags are a passive system, not requiring human remembering to put it on.

Drivers don't choose the roadway designs they're responding to. How can we shift the narrative so drivers understand there's a win for them in redesigning roadways to give them the right information for the context and mix of people, modest, destinations? Too often constructed as a win/lose or a takeaway.

Something that's been helpful for me personally in changing the thought process of others is calling these events "incidents" not "accidents" because "incidents" are preventable and how can we re-design things or eliminate the hazard to prevent an incident rather than saying "it was just an accident"

What is the impact of having an oversight authority at work on "accidents" as compared to the public perception of lack of oversight on the roads and mostly relying on personal risk tolerance?

So many of our Montgomery County MD neighbors have been killed in this very scenario - crossing the street to get to/from the bus stop.

How do you combat the thought process in a city department of transportation that removes concrete bollards lining a protected two-way bike lane and replacing them with refective flex posts because of having to maintain the bollards due to cars hitting them and destroying them instead of fixing the road design to prevent the bollards from geting hit (and fixing the maintenance issues at the same time)?

I’m seeing school safety can be something everyone can get behind!

I am currently teaching Alive at 25 to Sophomores in High School which focuses primarily on driver behavior and making safe, responsible and respectful choices when behind the wheel, but what I am hearing is that this behavior awareness is not going to change anything. Shouldn't taking responsibility for your own actions be part of the change?

Lots of insight into designing for people who make mistakes (while training the people to make as few mistakes as possible) on the YouTube channel for the US Chemical Safety Board (USCSB). Example: if there are chemicals that might be confused for each other with deadly results, put them in different colored barrels. If 2 things shouldn't mix, make the hose connectors incompatible.

I recently retired after 31 years local and military law enforcement and investigated thousands of crashes. I'm also a NSC Defensive Driving Instructor. I agree that injuries can be reduced through better designed vehicles and highways. However, I've never investigated a crash that was a random event. There was always someone making a poor decision either through carelessness, limited experience or lack of driving skills. Not paying attention, reckless speed, failure to maintain control, red lights, stop signs. etc. If you follow the rules of the road and drive defensively you can avoid most crashes. It was never the vehicle or highways fault.

Safety investments need to be sold (framed) in terms of benefiting everyone in ways easy to visualize.

Even if 100% of crashes were caused by bad drivers, we would still need to protect everyone else on the road from being killed by them (to the extent possible)

@Cassandra I really liked your point. Taking responsibility for actions certainly should be part of the change. I also support that it would improve things if there was less assumption that the human error is the major cause

We should not pick sides. We need to do both. Your ideas are sound, but they are long range improvements. We can't wait. It is very difficult to change/improve legislation and regulations. We are killing more than 45K people each year on our roads so we need to do things now. Education, better legislation, increased enforcement is still needed. We need to educate of our young kids, teens and re-educate adults on the dangers of driving.

100% agree with Jessie - SHOW people what they can get!

You see that when you take Uber.

Traffic design is certainly the priority, but as users of the designed systems, we have to partner with engineers by participating and giving feedback. If people repeatedly avoid using a crosswalk, we need to reach out to them to have a conversation that addresses their need while educating them.

Great point on prioritizing pedestrians vs cars! One example: on the YouTube channel called Not Just Bikes, the author mentions different approach to street design in Europe vs the US: while in Europe streets are designed to maximize number of people crossing (including buses, streetcar, etc), in the US it's maximizing the number of cars crossing. Totally different approach that drives policy.

One interesting change is adding DOT engineers to crash investigation teams (folks whose expertise is the infrastructure ) alongside law enforcement (folks whose expertise is law/behavior). This is being done in NYC and also my hometown of Athens GA

Yes; media can definitely get the message out, but with our practice of muting every commercial during a program, they will have to get more creative than ever to get our attention!

Resource on what Jessie is discussing now about media framing of crashes with research, resources, webinar recording and how we can shift the framing https://www.pedallove.org/from-victim-blaming-to-solutions-toolkit

Heidi, can you drop info in the chat about that crash dissection group?

The Individualist Mindset is likely our most formidable barrier to meaningful change. Highly recommend this resource on Mindset Shifts from the Frameworks Institute: https://www.frameworksinstitute.org/publication/mindset-shifts-what-are-they-why-do-they-matter-how-do-they-happen/

The challenge of addressing the needs of poor, indigent, etc. is getting them to engage.

Some cities in Arizona now have Driverless vehicles on the road (Waymo) how do they play into the current and future of road safety

https://knoxtpo.org/crashes/

Being in transportation safety, my goal is to remove hazards and situations where my drivers even have the option to make the wrong call. At the end of the day it's not about what people "should" be doing, it's about what they ARE doing and/or going to do. You can beat someone black and blue with policy and enforcement but those resources are better spent elsewhere by removing the risk altogether.

European countries also have much better public transit and (at least some) much stricter driver's licensing requirements. Are these also slices of the swiss cheese we need to adopt?

"my time & money is worth more than those people's lives"

Some of the book's discussion of "how to fall" bothered me a bit because I can see auto manufacturers, DOTs, AAA, et al. start saying that we need to teach people walking and biking how to fall better.

Eileen, I've heard Mi Ae Lipe of Driving in the Real World describe the UK driver training system as much more rigorous, more real training, not parents marking time to let their kids rack up their required hours. We use amateurs for the majority of driver learning time. https://drivingintherealworld.com/

the debate reminds be a bit of the opioid crisis with oxycontin ... where "the system" escalated the deaths not personal responsibility

Safety campaign people ALREADY create victim-blaming materials so that wouldn't be new.

Thanks for asking it. (I see learning how to fall as a good thing, but just one slice -- other slices are government maintainance of sidewalks, removing objects, etc.) I agree with the general point about reducing harm, tho.

Look at this 1936 illustration of crash impact compared with falling from a building. https://twitter.com/Love30ca/status/1352238178422280195?s=20&t=4xdeN69l7UrtGHOTz0qwpg

As someone who has worked with elderly folks, stroke patients etc. I can ABSOLUTELY agree that the expectation that you can keep people from falling is very unrealistic vs. reducing the harm (and there's evidence to back this up)

We expect humans to behave in nonhuman ways in environments and with technologies not designed for humans.

SHOUT OUT to Hoboken!

For additional cities that have realized Vision Zero: https://www.dekra-vision-zero.com/map

https://patch.com/new-jersey/hoboken/hoboken-earns-praise-secretary-buttigieg-road-safety

Seattle adopted 25mph speed limit citywide, put up more/bigger speed limit signs, got early results. More to be done to redesign and calm traffic but signage made a difference coupled with a proactive communications push. https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/safety-first/vision-zero/speedlimits#:~:text=In%202016%2C%20we%20changed%20the,25%20MPH%20%2C%20unless%20otherwise%20posted.

Georgia DOT has also instituted that policy of safety review with every repaving project (often adding rumble strips etc.)

There is an assupmtion that our current laws and practices are correct, and that if people just followed the rules we would be safe. How do we change the discussion to the changes we need to laws and practices?

Resource if you want to get speed limit-setting policy approach changed (my team led development of this framework--adapt to your jurisdictions/state laws): https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-10/InjuryMinimization-SpeedManagement-PolicyElements-Recommendations.pdf

Let's also mention Utah's change to .05 BAC limit! https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/utah-lower-impaired-driving-law-study

Liberating people from car dependency is a safety countermeasure.

Not in NHTSA stats, Heidi.

Re mis-designed roads--Look at the crash report form: That's not one of the boxes you can check

The Highway Safety Manual counts VMT reduction as a proven safety countermeasure.

Advocates have focused a lot on road design. While road design is very important, what other changes do we need to laws, practices, education, law enforcement, and our courts?

Lindell, if your state law or local ordinance requires the 85th percentile to be used in setting speed limits that needs to change. That's the equivalent of saying to a bank robber, "Oh, you took some money? Here, let us prop the door open a little wider for you."

NTSB investigations DO focus on the system. E.g. this one: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18MH009.aspx

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Thank you this was very insightful!

Great webinar, thank you!

This was great! Thanks, Heidi!

thanks much. important topic and mind-restructuring

Really appreciate the conversational approach!