Analyses of Traffic Safety Outcomes on Rural and Urban Roadways in Nevada and California

Abstract: This poster presentation will summarize comparative analyses of safety outcomes on rural and urban roads. It will focus on roads in Nevada and California over the period from 2015 to 2021. The analyses examine factors such as temporal characteristics, population densities characterized as rural or urban, road types and functional classes, extent of road network (quantified as center line miles of road), travel demand (in terms of vehicle miles of travel). Data sources included the crash data set from the NDOT, the Caltrans, the US Bureau of the Census, and agencies within the states.
Rural areas, though home to only a small fraction of the population, account for a disproportionately high number of traffic fatalities. In Nevada, rural regions, with their essential yet sparsely traveled roads, saw 28% of the state’s fatalities despite only 7% of all crashes occurring there. In California, rural roads, had only 16% of annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT), but they accounted for nearly 34% of all traffic deaths.
The results presented help better understand the relative road safety risks and factors associated with them. In turn, they can help to guide strategic improvements in infrastructure, speed management, emergency response, and policy-making, ultimately enhancing road safety in both rural and urban settings in Nevada and California.