Bicycle Austin forum

tomwald

Moderator

From: 78722

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 290

Travis County traffic deaths in 2008

The Austin American-Statesman has published a map, list, and some minor analysis of the Travis County traffic deaths of 2008.
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/statesman/pdf … es2008.pdf

Notable, especially for this forum:
* Of the 59 fatalities, 1 was a bicyclist (Chris Davis), 18 were pedestrians, and 22 were motorcyclists.  I think the assumption is that the other 18 fatalities were in motor vehicles (with at least 4 wheels).
* The deadliest hour of the day was 2-3am, claiming 17.9% of the total (though my math shows this to be about 10.56 people).
* There were no fatalities between 9-10am.
* No one younger than 11 died in traffic in 2008.
* Of the last 14 years (all of those shown), only two years have had fewer traffic fatalities, 1999 (55) and 2003 (52).

tomwald

Moderator

From: 78722

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 290

Re: Travis County traffic deaths in 2008

- There are 95 people listed on that page. So, perhaps it's 59 motor vehicle + 18 pedestrians + 22 motorcyclists + 1 bicyclist - 5 unpublished names?

- That screwy math then makes all their percentage charts a real crapshoot as to actual numbers.

- I seem to remember more than one bicyclist death last year, but going back through the mailing list it seems that there was only the one /in austin/. One more in Kyle and another near Fredricksburg.

- I'm kind of impressed that, with the population growth since 1995, the trendline on traffic fatalities is down, not up.

- Across the state DPS reports ~50 cyclist deaths/year from 2003-2007.  1 in Austin seems like a pretty good number in relation to that (worse than zero for sure).

Okay, so I misunderstood the numbers listed on the American-Statesman's graphic.  That explains why some of the numbers didn't fit together properly.  Just take a look at their PDF and read _very_ carefully.

I'll try to correct my original interpretations, but you may be best looking at the PDF yourself or doing your own research using raw data:

* There were _95_ traffic fatalities in _Travis County_ in 2008.
* Presumably, of those 95, there were 54 motor vehicle fatalities:  95 total - 1 bicyclist - 18 pedestrians - 22 motorcyclists = 54 unaccounted and therefore, presumably, motor vehicle occupants (4+ wheels)
* The deadliest hour of the day was 2-3am, claiming 17.9% of the total _95_ fatalities, so 17 of the 95 occurred in that hour of the day.  (Average percentage per hour-of-day is necessarily 100/24 = 4.2%.)
* There were no fatalities between 9-10am.
* No one younger than 11 died in traffic in 2008.
* The following only applies to Austin (not to Travis County as a whole):  Of the last 14 years (all of those shown), only two years have had fewer traffic fatalities than 2008 (59):  1999 (55) and 2003 (52).

Thanks to Andy Webb for bringing my misinterpretation to our attention.

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

Re: Travis County traffic deaths in 2008

One possible explanation for fatalities going down as population increases, is that increased population means more traffic congestion, and that means slower speeds, and slower speeds mean less carnage.

Just a theory.

lluciano

Member

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 21

Re: Travis County traffic deaths in 2008

Sadly, another reason that fatalities are going down is that maybe fewer people are cycling.  I hope that is not the case.  Definitely too many confounding variables to come to any absolute conclusions.