The Driving Safety Show is a safety-themed podcast that engages influential people in the field of road safety in conversations about key topics. Some of the issues discussed on the show include distracted driving, aggressive driving, traffic laws, and more. Episode 25 of the show featured Mark Gregory, the senior regional manager at Traffic Logix and a talented traffic engineer discussing traffic calming and Traffic Logix. Here are some highlights of the show.
Rationale
Why is it so important to slow cars down? The difference between a pedestrian struck by a car at 20 mph and someone struck at 40 mph is huge. At 20 mph, a pedestrian has a 90% survival rate. At 40 mph, that drops to only a 10% chance of survival. And research shows that traffic calming solutions really are effective in lowering vehicle speeds. That means that decreasing driver speeds directly increases the chance of survival in crashes and at the same time lowers the likelihood that there will even be a crash.
Bonus Benefits
Solutions like speed humps and radar signs are proven to slow cars down and improve safety. But there’s some added benefits you get from installing traffic calming on your streets as well. They have been shown to encourage different transportation modes. They also increase property value, decrease crime, and improve street aesthetics. So while your primary goal is slowing cars, you get some great side benefits to your streets.
In the Clouds
Traffic Logix solutions are cloud-enabled, which means they can gather data and give you intel into what’s going on on your roads. This data can be very empowering for communities as they learn what times of day, week, and year speeding is more of an issue, how serious speeding issues are, and what average and 85th percentile speeds are. This can also be powerful when considering the effectiveness of traffic calming solutions by using before and after data.
