Doak TC's Traffic Safety Summit Notes, Day 2

It's day 2 of the Michigan Traffic Safety Summit at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing. There are approximately 400 traffic safety advocates here discussing state and national strategies aimed at reducing all traffic crashes, traffic crash injuries and traffic crash deaths. Here is a summary of my notes and observations from today.

- New Mexico was the first state to mandate vehicle interlocks for all individuals convicted of drunk driving. So, on the practical side, that means for your first conviction you will pay to have this device on your vehicle that you must blow in to each time you want to start the car. And, that'll be for one full year (1st conviction). In 2007, New Mexico's vehicle interlocks identified 63,000 incidences when an impaired driver was prohibited from starting their vehicle because they blew positive (a "dirty blow"). Since adoption of this policy, along with coordinated education, communication and enforcement, New Mexico has dropped out of the "top ten" states for drunk driving.

- Michigan saw a 17% reduction in motorcycle crashes in 2009. That's after a couple of years of increases.

- In June 2009 it became law in Michigan that all children under 4 must be in the back seat. The nursing mother exemption was also removed at this time.

- Although it is very hard to change human behaviors regarding traffic safety there have been successes nationally and in Michigan. Both seatbelts and drunk driving have seen major behavioral changes. These have only come with a combination of persuasion, coercion and changes to the driving environment. You'll find the NHTSA report on "Countermeasures that Work" at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/. Click on Traffic Safety.

- Do shock ads or demonstrations (such as the crash cars at school events) have a documented effect on behavioral change? Current research shows that these messages on their own have only a short term impact on behavior change.

- Research has shown only two effective methods for removing car/deer conflicts. 1, shoot the deer, and 2, put up 8 foot fences along the roadway. Research shows that it needs to be 8 feet and start right at the ground. Near Clare, though, the Michigan Department of Transportation has found that changing the seed mixture used to do plantings along the side of the road makes a big difference. Biologists told them that seeds they had been using were a highly desirable deer feed. They switched to seeds that the deer don't like.

- In the next few years every vehicle sold in Sweden will be required to have vehicle ignition interlocks.

- There are experiments with roadways that will change color at freezing temperatures so that drivers will have more information about conditions. Michigan had over 20,000 crashes in 2009 where "icy roads" was the documented condition at the time.

- Cable barriers in roadway medians are 95% effective at capturing and redirecting vehicles, preventing them from continuing in to the opposing lanes.