Helping Law Enforcement Agencies Proactively Reduce Traffic Crashes Caused by Unsafe Driving Behaviors

by John McCombs, Haitham Al-Deek, Adrian Sandt, and Grady Carrick

Traffic safety is important for communities around the world. One key component of traffic safety is law enforcement. Law enforcement officers help ensure that drivers follow the rules of the road and keep our roadways safe. Since 2019, United States law enforcement agencies have experienced limited staffing and low recruitment. Having fewer officers available makes it difficult for law enforcement to proactively patrol roadways while also responding to traffic crashes. Given this limited staffing, it is important to help law enforcement agencies prioritize where officers should be allocated so they can proactively stop unsafe drivers before crashes occur.

TRR published paper titled “Identifying Important Roadway Corridor Factors which Affect Crashes Influenced by Unsafe Driving Behaviors to Help Law Enforcement Proactively Reduce Crashes” authored by John McCombs, Haitham Al-Deek, Adrian Sandt, and Grady Carrick focused on locating priority corridors for proactive law enforcement patrols. Our University of Central Florida research team under the leadership of Professor Haitham Al-Deek, Ph.D., P.E., with the help of Dr. Grady Carrick from Enforcement Engineering, Inc., who is an ex-chief of police for the Florida Highway Patrol (Jacksonville area), identified roadway factors which influenced the frequency of unsafe driving behaviors (such as failing to stop at a red light or careless driving) on major signalized roadway corridors in Florida. Understanding these factors will help law enforcement agencies identify corridors which have a high risk of crashes and could most benefit from increased patrolling. For this research, we defined a corridor as a stretch of roadway containing the same area type and number of lanes, with each corridor required to have at least one lane in each direction, the same number of lanes in each direction, be at least 0.5 miles long, and contain at least one signalized intersection. Applying this definition resulted in 406 roadway corridors in seven Florida counties with a high number of injuries and fatalities due to unsafe driving behaviors. Using a corridor-based approach instead of analyzing individual intersections or roadway segments makes it easier to implement patrols while also providing a more holistic view of traffic safety.

Next, we used a machine learning algorithm known as random forests to identify the significant influential roadway factors for crashes resulting from unsafe driving behaviors in these corridors. Machine learning helps to find insights in the data that traditional analysis approaches might not identify. We were able to identify the factors which affect crash rates for three different crash groups: total crashes (all crashes ranging from property damage only to fatal crashes), fatal and injury crashes only, and only fatal and injury crashes involving careless or reckless driving.

For all three crash groups, corridors in Pasco County (which is part of the greater Tampa Bay area in west central Florida) were predicted to have much higher crash rates than corridors in the other study counties. Law enforcement citation data suggested that Pasco County likely had limited proactive patrols to help curb unsafe driving behaviors. Therefore, increasing law enforcement patrols in Pasco County corridors could help proactively reduce crashes. It was also found that corridors with more signalized intersections per mile; either 1, 3, or 4 lanes in each direction; or which contained a midblock crosswalk not at an intersection had higher crash rates for all three crash groups, so prioritizing law enforcement in corridors with these characteristics could help reduce crashes.

Some additional factors were found to only be significant for one or two of the studied crash groups. Corridors with higher traffic volumes and speed limits were predicted to have more total crashes, while corridors which contained an entrance or exit ramp to an interstate or toll road were predicted to have more total crashes and more fatal and injury crashes. School zones were predicted to reduce total crashes and fatal and injury crashes due to careless or reckless driving. Finally, straight corridors and corridors with bike lanes were predicted to have more fatal and injury crashes (for all unsafe driving behaviors and specifically careless or reckless driving).

Using these results, law enforcement agencies can identify roadway corridors in their jurisdictions which have these influential factors and assess if they should receive additional proactive patrols. Prioritizing corridors with high signalized intersection densities, traffic volumes, and speed limits is likely to help deter unsafe driving behaviors. Although this research only used Florida data, a similar approach could be used by agencies in other states to identify influential factors and priority corridors where law enforcement patrols would best keep the motoring public safe.

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Article Details
Identifying Important Roadway Corridor Factors which Affect Crashes Influenced by Unsafe Driving Behaviors to Help Law Enforcement Proactively Reduce Crashes
John McCombs, Haitham Al-Deek, Adrian Sandt, Grady Carrick
First published March 29, 2024 Research Article
DOI: 10.1177/03611981241234921
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

About the Authors

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John McCombs is a doctoral candidate at the University of Central Florida (UCF), graduating in Spring 2024 with his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from UCF in 2020 and 2023, respectively. His research is focused on improving traffic operations and safety for Florida roadways. His doctoral research focuses on developing a corridor-level approach to traffic safety. He has helped author 14 papers published in peer-reviewed journals including Transportation Research Record, several of which have received awards from or been presented at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting.

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Haitham Al-Deek is a professor in the department of civil, environmental, and construction engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF) since 1992. He has more than 33 years of experience in freeway operations and intelligent transportation systems. He is well known for his contributions to the field of wrong-way driving and countermeasures. He received 21 recognition awards and best paper awards from the Transportation Research Board (TRB). He had numerous media interviews on his wrong-way driving research and has 3 US patents, 2 registered marks, and 8 copyrights. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991 and 1987 respectively. At UCF, he supervised 17 Ph.D. dissertations and 29 M.S. theses to completion. He has attracted 10.5 million dollars of research funding with over 80 applied research and has more than 407 peer reviewed publications and presentations. Professor Al-Deek is the Technical Editor of TRR (TRB journal), chair of paper reviews for the TRB Freeway Operations and TRB Regional Transportation Systems Management and Operations Committees since 2000. He also chaired the paper reviews for the TRB Freight Transportation Data Committee (2001-2007). He is the associate editor of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Journal (J-ITS) since 2007. He is also an active registered professional engineer in Florida since 1998.

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Adrian Sandt, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Central Florida (UCF) who obtained his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from UCF in 2018. Mr. Sandt started transportation research as an undergraduate in 2012 and has mainly focused on traffic operations and safety, including wrong-way driving prevention, improving response to disabled and abandoned vehicles, and identifying high-risk corridors on Florida signalized roadways. He has helped author over 35 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, including multiple award-winning papers which have been presented at Transportation Research Board Annual Meetings and published in the Transportation Research Record.

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Grady Carrick is a retired Florida Highway Patrol Chief, who distinguished himself as a champion for traffic operations and safety during his 30 years with the agency. Since his retirement in 2012, Dr. Carrick has worked with local, state, and Federal agencies to advance a safe and efficient transportation system in a consulting role. Dr. Carrick is passionate about traffic and responder safety and he has a national reputation as an advocate for traffic incident management. He is Chair of the Transportation Research Board Traffic Law Enforcement Committee, and he has served on numerous projects, panels, and boards both in Florida and Nationally. As a researcher, he has worked with multiple universities as well as public and private organizations, with more than 40 publications and hundreds of presentations to his credit.