A Study of Factors Contributing to Pedestrian Crashes in El Paso County, Texas

Transcription

1 A Study of Factors Contributing to Pedestrian Crashes in El Paso County, Texas By Suleiman A. Ashur, Ph.D., P.E. Assistant Professor Department of Civil Engineering The United Arab Emirates University P. O. Box Al Ain- UAE Work done at: The University of Texas at El Paso Ph: (UAE). Kelvin J. Kroeker, M.Sc, P.E. BPLW Architect & Engineering Inc 215 N Stanton Street, Suite 501 El Paso, Texas Ph: , Fax: (915) kkroeker@bplw.com and M. Hadi Baaj, Ph.D., P.E. Associate Professor Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Architecture American University of Beirut Beirut, Lebanon Tel: , ext. 3484; Fax: (212) hadib@aub.edu.lb Total Word: This paper is papered for presentation at the 82 nd Transportation Research Board meeting and publication in the Transportations Research Records. August 1, 2002

2 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 2 Abstract The focus of this paper is on the pedestrian crashes in El Paso, Texas, USA. During the last decade, issues of pedestrian and bicyclist safety have gained increased national attention. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) suggests the increased attention was likely due to number of pedestrian fatalities nationwide. This drop led the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) to establish a goal of increasing the usage of these methods of travel in In the same year, Congress appropriated funds for the National Bicycling and Walking Study. The objective of this research is to study the factors that contribute to pedestrian crashes within the County of El Paso, Texas, USA. These factors will aid the identification of crash types that might be preventable through educational, enforcement, or engineering methods. During the study period of 1995 to 1998, 81 pedestrians were killed and 1221 were injured in El Paso County. Additionally, two bicyclists were killed and 330 were injured. Viewed from another perspective, 26 percent of El Paso s traffic fatalities were pedestrians while only 12 percent of trips were made by pedestrians. These statistics illustrate that pedestrian crashes tend to be one of the most serious crash types. These statistics also suggest that efforts should be undertaken to understand the factors contributing to pedestrian collisions so that preventative measures may be developed.

3 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 3 BACKGROUND During the last decade, issues of pedestrian and bicyclist safety have gained increased national attention. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) suggests the increased attention was likely due to number of pedestrian fatalities nationwide (1). This drop led the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) to establish a goal of increasing the usage of these methods of travel in In the same year, Congress appropriated funds for the National Bicycling and Walking Study. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) was also passed in 1991, providing substantial amounts of federal funds for bicycling and walking improvements. The FHWA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) completed the National Bicycling and Walking Study in 1994 and set goals of (1) doubling the percentage of total trips made by cycling and walking in the United States and (2) reducing by 10 percent the number of bicyclists and pedestrians killed or injured in traffic crashes. The study s five-year status report issued in 1999 anticipated that updated pedestrian and bicyclist trip information would not be available until 2002 when the 2000 census data is ready. The same report states that pedestrian fatalities and both pedestrian and bicyclist injuries have been reduced significantly since 1994, while bicyclist fatalities remain steady. On a state level, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Highway Safety Plan for several years set goals of decreasing pedestrian fatalities and injuries, increasing pedestrian and bicycle safety knowledge and awareness, and identifying problems and countermeasures to improve safety. To accomplish its goals, the plan proposes to enhance pedestrian and bicycle safety education and evaluate pedestrian fatality risk factors. Local governments also have become a part of the ISTEA initiative. Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) such as the El Paso MPO set the goal of encouraging use of pedestrian and bicycle modes of transportation. As part of the ISTEA initiative, the El Paso MPO commissioned the Regional Bikeways Plan, which was prepared by a consultant in The author assisted in the preparation of the Regional Bikeways Plan. The focus of study is on pedestrian crashes, since they represent a greater portion of the crash data During the study period of 1995 to 1998, 81 pedestrians were killed and 1221 were injured in El Paso County. Additionally, two bicyclists were killed and 330 were injured. Details of the pedestrian crashes are contained in Table 1. Viewed from another perspective, 26 percent of El Paso s traffic fatalities were pedestrians while only 12 percent of trips were made by pedestrians (2). These statistics illustrate that pedestrian crashes tend to be one of the most serious crash types. These statistics also suggest that efforts should be undertaken to understand the factors contributing to pedestrian collisions so that preventative measures may be developed. The objective of this study is to identify the factors that contribute to pedestrian crashes within the County of El Paso. These factors will aid the identification of crash types that might be preventable through educational, enforcement, or engineering methods. DATA COLLECTION The research began by searching for and reviewing available resources on pedestrian and bicycle crash data. Search methods used included well-known transportation databases or publications such as the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Research Board, Institute of Transportation Engineers, Journal of Transportation Engineering, Journal of Accident Prevention and Analysis, general World Wide Web search. Additional resources were sought from both Texas A & M s Texas Transportation Institute and U. T. Austin s Center for Transportation Research. The applicable resources are discussed in the following paragraphs. In reviewing these resources it became apparent that many techniques have been developed for analyzing pedestrian crash data. Various terms will be used within this paper to describe these events. Preference is given to the terms crash and collision. The term accident is used at times in earlier related literature. Most transportation professionals now use the term crash because it describes an event that could have been prevented, while the term accident implies the event occurred randomly or by chance.

4 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 4 The data used in this study defines a fatal collision as one that results in death up to 30 days following a crash. The Texas Department of Public Safety has determined that 99 percent of all deaths from crashes occur within 30 days of the crash date (3). Texas Department of Public Safety Data Research began by requesting El Paso County pedestrian crash data from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Accident Records Bureau. Data from its Motor Vehicle Traffic Accident Records was available for the years from 1994 to 1998 at the time this effort was initiated. The 1994 data lacked any information regarding pedestrian characteristics and the data beyond 1998 were not available, so the study period was limited to 1995 to The data provided by the DPS did not consist exclusively of pedestrian crashes but of all traffic crashes. The data was available in ASCII text format which was extracted from a mainframe database, with characters organized into columns representing coded fields. A sample of the data is illustrated in Figure 1. Each year comprised its own electronic text file. The codes were interpreted with the DPS Motor Vehicle Traffic Accident Coding Instructions. The data was imported to Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files. Macro and manual methods were used to parse and sort the data, illustrated in Figure 2. The accident consists of three records: A2, B, and C. Record A2 consist of 45 fields of general Information about the accident as shown in Table 2. Record A1 is used only by cities participating in detailed data program and was not used in this study. Table 3 shows Record B that contains the vehicle and driver information and has 28 data fields. The Record C contains casualty/occupant information and has 20 data fields as shown in Table 4. The data is referenced by the unique DPS accident number. The pedestrian crashes were then isolated from the other crashes (i.e., vehicular-vehicular crashes). A total of 81 fatalities and 1221 injuries were reported for the study period. In the queries on the data contained in the subsequent chapter, the totals of specific groups are sometimes less than the total fatalities and injuries due to missing fields of data. Effort was focused on two of the three data record forms the ones containing details of the crash and the person. The third data record form C that contained characteristics of the driver and was not considered in depth for this research. However, it will be used in the future research. It should be noted that the data contained five categories for the severity of the crash: fatal, incapacitating injury, non-incapacitating injury, possible injury and non-injury. Only 11 of 1331 pedestrians involved in a crash were not injured. Because so few pedestrians escape from a crash without being injured or killed, it was decided to not separately consider these events in this analysis. Instead crashes are grouped into only two categories: injury or fatal. Population Data Detailed population data was needed to calculate involvement rates. The total population of the County was obtained from the City of El Paso for each of the study period years, but a distribution of the County s population by age group and gender was only available from the census of Thus age and gender distributions were assumed to remain constant from 1990 to 1998 and the census data was used to estimate distributions during the study period. To calculate statewide involvement rates, Texas s population data was obtained from the Census Bureau. Other Databases The Fatality Accident Reporting System (FARS) collects records of fatal crashes across the nation. This system was developed by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis and contracts with public agencies such as the Texas DPS to gather information for these events. Like the Texas DPS data, it contains three record forms, containing details of the crash, vehicle and driver and person. Additionally, the FARS system incorporates a series of quality control checks that are run as the data is obtained, ensuring that no inconsistent entries are included. Queries of this database yielded 90 pedestrian fatalities for the study period in El Paso County, while statewide 1849 pedestrian fatalities were reported.

5 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 5 The City of El Paso maintains crash records from reports filed by the El Paso Police Department. Electronic files of this information were not available, but a hard copy of the records for the study period was reviewed. A total of 81 pedestrian fatalities and 1302 crashes were reported during the study period. Only basic crash information was included in the City of El Paso s records. Viewing the details of the accident requires a request and review of the police report for the crash. By comparing the crash and fatality totals from three different databases, validity is added to the research. The City of El Paso data compared favorably to the DPS data. The reasons for differences in the total fatalities and injuries between the DPS and FARS data were not studied as part of this research. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS The goal of this research is to study the pedestrian crashes and to identify factors contributing to these crashes. Three groups of factors were chosen based on the findings of previous research efforts. Three of these questions were first mentioned by Baltes (4): (1) to whom, (2) when and (3) how pedestrian crashes occur. At the beginning and to understand the extend of the pedestrian crashes problem in El Paso County, crash data was is collected and compared to the statewide and nationwide data gathered during the literature search. Hypothesis tests for comparing two means were employed as follows: for a given crash characteristic, the El Paso County mean was compared to the statewide mean. Then the county mean was compared to the nationwide mean. The data was considered to be three independent populations (county, state and nation), each with four samples (1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998). Exposure rates per 100,000 persons were calculated with population data as described in the previous sections. The two-sample t-test was used to test for significance in the comparison because the sample sizes for these populations were small and the population variances were unknown. The null hypothesis stated that the difference between the two means was zero, while the alternative hypothesis stated that El Paso County s mean was significantly greater than the other mean, either state or national. A level of significance of 0.05 was chosen, which represents an acceptable level of type I error based on previous research efforts. T-tests can be calculated with either a pooled variance or individual variances depending on whether the populations are normal and the population variances are equal (5). The pooled variance method was used though the results of the individual variances method produced nearly identical results. This comparison of results confirms that erroneous conclusions were not reached with the pooled variance method. The results of this t-test comparison analysis are listed in Table 5. Regarding pedestrian fatalities, the following observations can be made from the comparison analysis during the study period of 1995 to 1998: El Paso s pedestrian fatality rate is significantly higher than both Texas and the U.S. When compared on a gender-specific basis, El Paso s pedestrian fatality rates for both males and females are significantly higher than the national averages. Gender-specific rates were not available at the state level for comparison. The proportion of pedestrian fatalities occurring at non-intersection locations was not significantly higher in El Paso than in the nation. The proportion of pedestrian fatalities occurring in normal weather conditions is significantly higher in El Paso than in the nation. The proportion of pedestrian fatalities occurring at night was not significantly higher in El Paso than in the nation. Additional detail should be mentioned on two of these items. First, the reporting of characteristics such as intersection and non-intersection locations, weather and daylight and nighttime depends to some extent on the interpretation of the local law enforcement officer providing the report. Second, El Paso County receives rainfall on

6 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 6 fewer days than other areas in Texas and in the nation. With predominantly normal weather conditions, it should be expected that higher proportions of fatalities would occur at such times. Regarding pedestrian injuries, the following observation can be made from the comparison analysis for the study period of 1995 to 1998: El Paso s pedestrian injury rates are not significantly different from the national average, though El Paso s male pedestrian injury rate is significantly higher than the national male pedestrian injury rate. The availability of statewide injury rates for this comparison was limited. Also, caution must be exercised in interpreting injury results because practices of reporting slight or possible injuries can easily differ among local and state governments. A fatal crash can be clearly reported, while the reporting of injury crashes depends on subjective interpretation. IDENTIFICATION OF FACTORS The crash records of the age and gender groups with significantly higher frequencies of injuries and fatalities were reexamined to identify the contributing factors. It was expected that by identifying these factors, preventative measures could be recommended to decrease the occurrences of injuries and fatalities in these groups. This in turn could reduce El Paso County s crash frequencies to levels more consistent with the state and nation. Factors Contributing to Injuries Both male and female pedestrians in the 5 to 19 age group were over-represented in the injury records. Population data reports that this age group comprised 48 percent of the total pedestrian injuries but only 37 percent of the total population (City of El Paso 2). The literature search revealed that these age groups are characterized by a wide variety of behaviors and physical characteristics. For this reason, the 5 to 19 age group was divided into two subgroups. Pedestrians from ages 5 to 14 typically behave as children with limited perceptions of traffic safety, while pedestrians from ages 15 to 19 are increasingly aware of traffic safety and may even possess a driver s license. The details of the age 5 to 14 group s crashes reveal that 55 percent occurred when crossing a street not at an intersection or crosswalk. Most (81 percent) occurred on weekdays and most (51 percent) occurred between 3 PM and 7 PM. Most (84 percent) took place on city streets rather than on major highways. Additionally, the child acted in violation of traffic laws in 72 percent of the crashes. The details of the age 15 to 19 group s crashes revealed that only 24 percent occurred when crossing a street not at an intersection or crosswalk. Pedestrian action was often recorded as unknown and the violations of the traffic laws decreased to 49 percent. Fewer crashes (34 percent) occurred on city streets and several crashes occurred on major highways and freeways. The shift in frequencies shows a significant difference in contributing factors from the younger group. Another group over represented in injuries consists of females age 70 and above. The characteristics of this group s crashes were significantly different from the previous groups. Most crashes (73 percent) occurred when the pedestrian crossed a street at an intersection or crosswalk. Pedestrians in this group are often struck by vehicles turning at intersections due to their slower walking speeds. However, 60 percent of these events involved vehicles traveling straight. Additionally, 57 percent of the pedestrians were not found to be violating traffic laws. Factors Contributing to Fatalities Contrary to national data, El Paso s pedestrian crash data showed a surprisingly high frequency of fatalities among females age 10 to 19. Children and young adults are usually injured rather than killed in pedestrian crashes. It is possible that this small sample size (seven fatalities) is not a longstanding trend. Regardless, the factors common to these events were examined in detail to find that most (five fatalities) occurred on weekends around 6 PM or 7 PM. Additionally, four of the seven fatalities occurred when crossing a street not at an intersection or crosswalk and five of the pedestrians were found to be violating traffic laws. The high frequency of fatal crashes involving adults ages 35 to 44 is also unexpected based on the findings of previous studies. Again, the small sample size (13 fatalities) may not be representative of a longstanding trend. Upon examination, the data revealed several noteworthy characteristics of these crashes. Most (10 fatalities) occurred on Friday, Saturday or Sunday or occurred after 6 PM (11 fatalities). This group contained more males than females (11

7 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 7 males versus 5 females). Most (10 fatalities) occurred at non-intersection locations and most (9 fatalities) occurred on major highways or freeways. Most (8 pedestrians) were found to be violating traffic laws at the time of the crash. Previous study efforts suggest that non-elderly, adult pedestrians are most frequently struck when they are intoxicated or otherwise walking in the roadway. The lack of blood alcohol content data on all but three of the El Paso crashes prevents verification of this condition. The over-representation of fatalities among adults ages 70 and older is prevalent in similar studies. The FHWA issued a report titled Focusing on the Senior Pedestrian which contains nationwide data on crashes of pedestrians age 65 and older. To facilitate a comparison of El Paso County s data with national data, the age 70 and above category was combined with the age 65 to 69 category. This combined group of senior pedestrians contained 19 fatalities or 27 percent of the total number of fatalities but represented only 10 percent of El Paso County s population. Most (63 percent) of these fatal crashes occurred when a vehicle struck the pedestrian while crossing not at an intersection or crosswalk. Additionally, in 74 percent of these fatal crashes among seniors, the data reports that the pedestrian was in violation of traffic laws. Discussion of Factors Table 6 was compiled based on the detailed examination of the El Paso crash records. The table is organized to correspond with the three questions posed earlier to whom, when and how do pedestrian crashes occur in El Paso County. The identification of these factors allows preventative measures appropriate to each age and gender group to be recommended. The literature search revealed that several of these groups are over-represented at the national level and that recommendations have already been prepared. For example, the FHWA report Focusing on the Senior Pedestrian recommends that seniors should make them more visible and become more alert. A separate FHWA report entitled Focusing on the Child Pedestrian suggests that children be taught to be more careful around moving vehicles. These recommendations are included, along with El Paso-specific recommendations, in the following section.

8 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 8 CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS The comparisons of El Paso County s pedestrian crash data to statewide or national data suggest that El Paso s pedestrians are at a greater risk of injury and fatality than pedestrians in the rest of Texas and the United States. The contributing factors answer three basic questions about pedestrian crashes to whom, when and how do these events occur? The principle factors include pedestrian age, crossing not at intersections, time of day, day of week, roadway type and traffic law violations. The final objective of the thesis was to make this information available to groups within the community that would be able to develop safety and educational campaigns to reduce the occurrence of such events. This was accomplished by issuing a press release at the conclusion of this research. The press release is included as Figure 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The research for this project was performed with the assistance of Jose Gabriela Mares and Leticia Arvide. They excelled in their duties as undergraduate research assistants and contributed greatly to the data collections and cleaning. The authors sincerely appreciate their hard work and support during this project. REFERENCES 1. United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. National Bicycling and Walking Study Five Year Status Report. April 1999: n. pag. Online. 15 Oct El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization. El Paso Metropolitan Transportation Plan Texas. Department of Public Safety. Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents 1998 and Baltes, Micheal R. Descriptive Analysis of Crashes Involving Pedestrians in Florida, Transportation Research Record 1636 (1998): Devore, Jay L. Probability and Statistics for Engineering and the Sciences. 4 th ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Duxbury, 1995

9 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 9 LIST OF TABLES Table Description Table 1 Study Period Pedestrian Crash Data Table 2 DPS Record A2 General Information Table 3 DPS Record B Vehicle and Driver Information Table 4 DPS Record C Casualty/Occupant Information Table 5 Comparison of Crash Data Means Table 6 Summary of Contributing Crash Factors per Group

10 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 10 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Description Figure 1 Sample Data Lines from DPS. Figure 2 Sample Data Lines from Spreadsheet. Figure 3 Press Release

11 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 11 Table 1 Study Period Pedestrian Crash Data Crash Type Study Year Not Possible Injury Non-Incapacitating Incapacitating Fatal Injured Injury Injury

12 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 12 Table 2 DPS Record A2 General Information (Note: Record A1 used only by cities participating in detailed data program) Category Number Category Name Comments 1 DPS Accident Number Sequential number for each accident 2 Record Control For El Paso County, indicates nonparticipation in Urban Project 3 County-City Code Only El Paso County data was studied 4 District DPS district number 5 Population Group In this case, Group 9 for 250,000 6 Road Class population Indicates roadways by class from interstates highways to city streets 7 Month January through December 8 Date Numerical day of month 9 Day of Week Sunday through Saturday 10 Time Beginning at midnight 11 Light Condition 12 First Harmful Event 13 Severity Indicates Daylight, dawn, darkness (not lighted), darkness (lighted) or dusk Only crashes of motor vehicles with pedestrians and pedalcyclists were studied Highest degree of injury suffered: incapacitating injury, non-incapacitating injury possible injury, fatal and non-injury 14 Weather Indicates clear or cloudy, raining, snowing, fog, blowing dust, smoke, sleeting and other 15 Surface Condition Indicates dry, wet, muddy or snowy/icy 16 Road Condition 17 Investigation 18 Alignment 19 Traffic Control 20 Roadway Related 21 Intersection related Indicates holes, defects, foreign materials, obstructions, construction Indicates agency responsible for investigation and issuance of citations if any Indicates straight or curved alignments with level, grade or hillcrest profiles Indicates if sign, signal or striping was related to crash Indicates if crash occurred on roadway, on shoulder or beyond shoulder Indicates if crash occurred at intersection, related to intersection, near driveway or other 22 Intersecting road type Various road classes for at grade and grade separated intersections 23 Intersection type Indicates number of legs to intersection 24 Vehicle Movements For pedestrian and pedalcyclist crashes, indicates straight, turning or backing movement by vehicle 25 Object Struck Combined with Item 12, this defines either the first or second impact of vehicle 26 Other Factors Various factors such as skidding diverted attention, passing, avoidance maneuvers, etc. 27 Vision Obstructed by Indicates if other vehicle, roadside or

13 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj Vehicle Swerved or veered 29 Vehicle slowing, stopping or stopped because 30 School bus related 31 Construction related natural features obstructed driver s vision Various categories of avoidance other vehicles, objects in road, animals, etc. Various categories other vehicles, objects in road, animals, etc. Must specify posted or unposted zones whether for construction or maintenance 32 Beach related 33 Control & Section From TxDOT records to indicate highway 34 Milepoint From TxDOT records to indicate location 35 Direction of Milepost Numbers Measured from North, East, South, West 36 Part of Roadway no. 1 involved Indicates crash on mainlane, ramp, etc. 37 Degree of Curve, No. 1 Various categories of degree of curvature from 0 to 18 and over 38 Bridge Number From TxDOT records 39 Bridge Detail Specify part of bridge contributed to crash 40 Direction of Travel In relation to mileposts 41 From and Point of Impact 42 Control, Section & Milepoint of Highway no Railroad Grade Crossing 44 County Number 45 Total Number of Vehicles Involved To indicate what feature of roadway vehicle came from and what feature of roadway crash occurred on From TxDOT records, to indicate intersecting roadway Total number regardless of sequence of impacts

14 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 14 Table 3 DPS Record B Vehicle and Driver Information Category Number Category Name Comments 1 DPS Accident Number Duplicated from Record A2 2 Record Control Number 3 Vehicle Year 4 Vehicle Make or Model 5 Vehicle Body Style 6 Vehicle Type To indicate new line for each casualty / occupant Passenger car, truck, bus, with or without trailer, etc. 7 Damage Scale N / A 8 Vehicle Defect Indicate if faulty brakes, steering, etc. contributed 9 Driver Age 10 Driver Race and Sex Indicates white, black or other male or female 11 Driver License Status Indicates whether driver is licensed of not licensed, resident of Texas or other 12 Driver Status Civilian, commercial, military, police 13 Compulsory Liability Insurance Yes or no 14 Driver Defect Used to indicate eyesight, hearing, fatigue, contributing to crash 15 Contributing Factors Used to indicate if speeding, disregard of stop, passing, etc. contributed to crash 16 Driver Vehicle Number Used to distinguish between various vehicles 17 Driver Severity of Injury N / a 18 Driver Restraining Device Used N / a 19 Driver Ejected from Vehicle N / a 20 Part of Vehicle Causing Injury N / a 21 Part of Body Injured N / a 22 Emergency Medical N / a 23 Helmet Information N / a 24 Eye Protective Device N / a 25 Color of Lens N / a 26 Type Specimen Taken for Alcohol/Drug Analysis Test 27 Alcohol/Drug Test Results 28 Total Vehicle Indicates if breath or blood sample was taken Indicates blood alcohol content or positive/negative drug test result Indicates total number of vehicles and casualties involved in crash

15 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 15 Table 4 DPS Record C Casualty/Occupant Information Category Number Category Name Comments 1 DPS Accident Number Duplicated from Record A2 2 Record Control Number To indicate new line for each casualty / occupant 3 Casualty or Occupant Age From 0 to 99 years of age 4 Casualty or Occupant Sex Male, female or unknown 5 Casualty or Occupant Vehicle Number N / a 6 Casualty or Occupant Seat Position N / a 7 Severity of Injury A-type for incapacitating B-type for non-incapacitating C-type for possible injury Killed or not injured 8 Restraining Device Used (occupant) N / a 9 Ejected from Vehicle (occupant) N / a 10 Part of Vehicle Causing Injury (occupant) N / a 11 Part of Body Injured Indicates head, torso, limb, etc. injured 12 Emergency Medical Indicates if EMS or other service assisted casualty 13 P. P. P. O. (definition unknown) Indicates if casualty was pedestrian or pedalcyclist 14 Helmet N / a 15 Color of Lens N / a 16 Type Specimen Taken for Indicates if breath or blood sample was Alcohol/Drug Analysis Test taken 17 Alcohol/Drug Test Results Indicates blood alcohol content or positive/negative drug test result 18 Pedestrian Action Indicates various actions crossing, walking, standing, playing, etc. 19 Pedestrian or Pedalcyclist Drinking Yes or no 20 Pedestrian or Pedalcyclist Violating Yes or no

16 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 16 Table 5 Comparison of Crash Data Means Characteristic El Paso County State of Texas United States Test: Is EP s Mean Test: Is EP s Mean Average Annual ,376 Significantly Significantly Pedestrian Fatalities Average Annual 305 5,552 78,000 Greater than TX s Mean? Greater than US s Mean? Pedestrian Injuries Pedestrian Fatalities as Yes Yes Percent of All Fatalities Pedestrian Male 3.37 N/A 2.84 N/A Yes Fatality Female 1.99 N/A 1.23 N/A Yes Rate Total Yes Yes Pedestrian Male 44.4 N/A 35.0 N/A Yes Injury Rate Female 26.9 N/A 24.0 N/A No Total No No Percentage of Fatalities at 74.0 N/A 78.5 N/A No Non-intersection Locations Percentage of Fatalities in 98.8 N/A 88.3 N/A Yes Normal Weather Conditions Percentage of Fatalities at Night 51.9 N/A 63.3 N/A No ( Data available for 1995 and 1996 only)

17 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 17 Table 6 Summary of Contributing Crash Factors per Group Group (Whom?) Injury Crashes Pedestrians age 5 to 14 Injury Crashes Pedestrians age 15 to 19 Fatal Crashes Female Pedestrians age 10 to 19 Fatal Crashes Pedestrians age 30 to 44 Injury Crashes Female Pedestrians age 70+ Fatal Crashes Pedestrians age 70+ Predominant Contributing Factors (When and How?) Crossing not at intersection Occurred on weekday afternoons Occurred on city streets Victim violating traffic laws Crossing not at intersection & other actions Occurred at various times & days Occurred on city streets, few on major highways & freeways Victim violating traffic laws Crossing not at intersection Occurred on weekend evenings Victim violating traffic laws Crossing not at intersection Occurred on weekend evenings Occurred on major highways or freeways Victim violating traffic laws Crossing at intersection Occurred throughout the day, week Victim not violating traffic laws Crossing not at intersection Occurred throughout the day, week Victim violating traffic laws

18 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj B F D70 35Y Y B J J+04 45T X B F D206 65T X B R F B J J B J J B B R307 55T X + Figure 1: Sample Data Lines from DPS.

19 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 19 DPS ACCIDENT NUMBER RECORD CONTROL COUNTY CITY DISTRICT POPULATION GROUP ROAD CLASS MONTH DATE DAY OF WEEK TIME OF DAY LIGHT CONDITION 1ST HARMFUL EVENT SEVERITY WEATHER SURFACE CONDITION ROAD CONDITION Figure 2: Sample Data Lines from Spreadsheet.

20 Ashur, Kroeker, and Baaj 20 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: El Paso s Pedestrians at Higher Risk PRESS RELEASE A graduate student in the UTEP Civil Engineering Department completed a study of pedestrian crashes in El Paso County from 1995 to The study compares El Paso s pedestrian crash data to the rest of the state and nation and identifies factors that contribute to pedestrian crashes in order to improve traffic safety. Data from over one thousand pedestrian crashes from four years was obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety. The term crash is used in current literature instead of the term accident because many times these tragic events are not random occurrences and can be prevented. The study focused on finding to whom, when and how pedestrian crashes occur. On average, 20 pedestrians are killed and 305 are injured each year in El Paso. The frequency of these events decreased somewhat during the study years. In El Paso, a higher percentage of pedestrian crashes are fatal, more pedestrian fatalities occur per 100,000 persons and more male pedestrians are injured per 100,000 persons than in the state or nation. El Paso s adults ages 35 to 44 are often killed when crossing highways or freeways not at intersections on weekend evenings. Our senior pedestrians, ages 70 and up, are often killed when crossing streets not at intersections at all times of the day and week. Children ages 5 to 14 are often injured when crossing streets not at intersections, on weekday afternoons and on city streets as opposed to highways. The study recommends additional educational, police enforcement and engineering efforts in an attempt to improve this serious problem. Figure 3 Press Release