City Of San Diego To Analyze Car Accidents

With its increasing population and more cars on the road, automobile accidents are a fact of life in a big city like San Diego. The number of accidents continues to rise on a yearly basis. As recently as 2006, 94 people were killed and 6,635 injured in San Diego city auto collisions. Alcohol related collisions accounted for 37 fatalities and 924 injuries.

"Alcohol has become a contributing factor in many auto accidents," observed nationally recognized auto defects attorney, John Bisnar. "The city of San Diego has seen a sizeable increase in the number of bars and nightclubs that serve alcohol and offer 'Happy Hour' specials."

Many people blame the increasing use of cell phones, PDA's and other electronic devices that drivers can't seem to put down while on the road. California's recent new laws prohibiting the use of non-hands-free cell phones while driving will certainly help. But San Diego is determined to reduce the number and severity of traffic accidents. And one exciting new tool that promises to help is the city's new Traffic Collision Reporting System.

Developed under a grant from the California State Office of Transportation Safety, the new system was especially designed to help analyze accidents by location, accident type, and a host of other contributing factors. The system's database stores and retrieves accident records, showing accidents and injury severity. It highlights "high collision" intersections and can quickly create intersection collision diagrams. The resulting information is used to help city planners and traffic control analysts determine any needed traffic safety improvements.

The Traffic Collision Reporting System provides critically important reservoirs of collision data. This includes location parameters, description of the vehicles involved, any vehicle defects, objects hit, and driver/pedestrian data (although no personal identification data will be collected). Also collected area data on vehicle actions and speeds, road and weather conditions, number injured or killed, type of collision, collision cause and traffic controls present.

The system even provides information on accidents that occur on a series of street segments (multiple blocks), as well as a listing of high collision intersections (using a ratio of accidents to traffic volume) and segment calculations (which determine the ratio of accidents to volume and distance). Citywide collision rates on classified streets (business, arteries, collectors, etc.) can also be calculated.

"A system like this would be ideal for every major city in California," noted John Bisnar. "Data like this is invaluable in helping to reduce the number of auto accidents in large metropolitan areas, especially with the increased levels of traffic and congestion on California's streets and highways."

City of San Diego Traffic Engineering Division

CHP Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS)