Safer streets: Fewer crashes in Las Cruces’ roads
by admin on Nov.30, 2011, under Home insurance
LAS CRUCES - Every day, more than 48,000 vehicles pass through the city’s busiest intersection at Lohman Avenue and Telshor Boulevard, but you’re more likely to get into a car crash at the intersection of El Paseo Road and Idaho Avenue, which sees a third fewer cars.
In an examination of city traffic statistics from the past three years, the Sun-News has uncovered the crash patterns as played out on city streets.
Here are a few other interesting tidbits:
•Nearly one-quarter of accidents are hit-and-runs.
•Contrary to popular perception, most accidents are not alcohol related.
•The intersection of Lohman Avenue and Telshor Boulevard is ranked the 20th worst intersection in New Mexico.
Common sense, and the most recent figures from the Las Cruces Metropolitan Planning Organization show that you’re most likely to get in a crash in heavy-traffic areas: around the Mesilla Valley Mall, near New Mexico State University, and at the busiest intersections on Lohman/Amador Avenue, Picacho/Spruce Avenue, Valley Drive, El Paseo Road, Missouri Avenue and Main Street, whose intersection with Solano Drive was 31st in a state ranking of the 50 worst crossings in New Mexico.
What’s surprising, said Las Cruces Police Department Sgt. Kevin Renn, is that as the city has grown, the number of crashes per month has remained the same - about 350 to 400, with a dropoff in the summer when there are fewer New Mexico State University students and high school drivers
on the road. In fact, compared with the average number of crashes per month from 2006 to 2010, this year has seen fewer crashes per month in every month so far except for June - the second-safest month of the year for automobile accidents - and July.
“There are fewer crashes in the summer because people are on the roadway at more spread out times,” Renn said. “There’s a spike in crashes when you go to work and one when you’re out to lunch, maybe rushing back to work, and when you’re going home. It’s just a matter of physics. You can only fit so many vehicles on a roadway before one of them bumps into another one.”
In September, the most recent full month for which numbers were available, there were 351 crashes in Las Cruces city limits (excluding highway crashes handled by New Mexico State Police). About 30 percent of all crashes - 107, including nine where one of the motorists was injured - were hit and runs. A total of 92 crashes, more than 26 percent, resulted in complaints of injuries. More than 4 percent of those crashes, and almost 3 percent of total crashes (10 in all) involved alcohol.
Those percentages remain relatively unchanged when you look at the last few years of car crash data, though Renn says, overall, hit-and-runs account for about 25 percent of crashes citywide.
“In looking at total crashes by month, I expected to see something different,” Renn said. “Because since 2006, the population’s gone up - but the number of crashes has remained the same.”
And, so far this year, none of the crashes have been fatal - though there have been two fatalities in Las Cruces off the roadways: a 3-year-old accidentally struck in the parking lot of an auto supply store in February, and a 30-year-old who wrecked his motorcycle in July while leaving an area bar. (In comparison, there were four fatal crashes in 2010 and four more in 2009.)
A 2012 statistical analysis by the MPO, an advisory group with representatives from the city, county and Mesilla, will reveal whether the city’s high-crash areas have changed since 2004-2006, the last time such an analysis was conducted, said senior planner Tom Murphy.
The intersection of El Paseo and Idaho, for instance - with streets not quite at 90-degree angles, a lack of dedicated turn lanes and traffic signals timed so that eastbound and westbound traffic receive separate green lights - is a mess, Murphy said.
Old engineering makes all the difference when comparing that intersection with the massive intersection at Lohman Avenue and Telshor Boulevard, and Murphy is curious to see if crashes have dropped since an overhaul that added extra turn lanes, changed traffic light timing and added a red-light camera. (The intersection had the same number of crashes in September - six - as it did in June 2008, but there were 27 more just outside that intersection.) New data should also indicate if crashes are down on Solano Drive, which was redirected from four lanes to three in 2008.
Renn thinks red-light cameras also help decrease the severity of crashes, because they discourage people from that last-second dart into a busy intersection, increasing rear-end fender-benders but decreasing T-bone crashes.
Not every intersection’s safety can be duplicated, Murphy notes.
The intersection of Lohman Avenue and Walton Boulevard, the sixth-busiest in town, has just a fourth of the crashes as Lohman Avenue and Solano Drive because “there’s just no surprises for drivers there,” Murphy said. “And, most of the volume is moving straight through, so there’s not as much turning.
“Every intersection’s probably different on why it gets crashes,” Murphy said. “Probably most accidents are due to driver error, but there are things we can do to improve it.”
Murphy has some common-sense advice for motorists who want to decrease their chances of becoming one of the those crash statistics: Avoid traveling during morning, mid-day and after-work rush hour, use back roads and pay attention (that means you, Las Crucens who continue to talk on your cell phones while driving).
“Not being in a hurry to get somewhere,” Murphy said. “That’s when most people, myself included, tend to not drive as well. Eliminate distractions. You’re operating a very heavy piece of machinery moving very fast, and it requires your complete concentration.”
Mayor Ken Miyagishima is a student of his city’s busy intersections: During his re-election campaign, he stationed five pairs of two people to hold up signs for him, two pairs at Lohman-Telshor and one each at Main and Solano, Idaho and El Paseo and Spruce and Telshor, visible to a total of 139,000 motorists.
But while eyes are good, crashes are not, and the city is slowly working on improving its high-crash areas, including finishing the replacement of all signal lights with LED lights, which cut electricity costs by 30 percent and provide more vivid reds, yellows and greens to drivers often blinded by the sun, said Miyagishima, who notes the installation of red-light cameras was one of those safety efforts.
“We always felt that the intersection of Main and Solano was dangerous,” said Miyagishima, also a career insurance agent. “That’s where the red-lights (cameras) were. That’s how we chose locations, based on the number of accidents that occurred. That one’s no longer there.”
The intersection, a six-legged beast that draws in traffic from El Camino Real and Spitz Street to the north, U.S. 70 to the east, 3 Crosses Avenue from the west and Main Street, Mesquite Street and Solano Drive to the south, might need an enlargement, Miyagishima said, “like what we did at Lohman-Telshor, because that’s a busy intersection.”
Ultimately, it’s less gridlock or planning than simple things within our control - cell phones, makeup, radios, food - that lead to crashes, especially the one-third to one-half that are rear-end crashes, Renn notes.
“It’s a combination of things, but I think driver inattention and unsafe following distance,” Renn said. “Somebody looks down and by the time they look up it’s too late.”
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462; follow her on Twitter @AshleyMeeks.
1. El Paseo Road and Idaho Avenue: 3.05 (about 30,000 vehicles per day)
2. Main Street and Solano Drive: 3.03 (about 38,000 vehicles a day)
3. Lohman Avenue and Telshor Boulevard: 2.88 (about 48,000 vehicles a day)
4. Lohman Avenue and Walnut Street: 2.23 (about 37,000 vehicles a day)
5. Idaho Avenue and Solano Drive: 2.14 (about 24,000 vehicles a day)
6. El Paseo Road and Boutz Road: 2.05 (about 32,000 vehicles a day)
7. Main Street and Elks Drive/Triviz Drive: 2.03 (about 41,000 vehicles a day)
8. Amador Avenue and Alameda Boulevard: 2.00 (about 27,000 vehicles a day)
9. University Avenue and Triviz Drive: 1.99 (about 33,000 vehicles a day)
10. Valley Drive and Boutz Road: 1.96 (about 20,000 vehicles a day)
11. Amador Avenue and Solano Drive: 1.92 (about 29,000 vehicles a day)
*Crash rates measure numbers of crashes per one million vehicles in 2004-2006, the most recent period for which figures were available.
Source: Las Cruces Metropolitan Planning Organization
What causes a crash?
•Failure to yield right of way contributed to 571 crashes
•Other improper driving contributed to 536 crashes
•Disregarding traffic signals contributed to 141 crashes
•Swerving to avoid hitting another vehicle contributed to 68 crashes
•Disregarding a stop sign contributed to 49 crashes
•Swerving to avoid hitting something else contributed to 14 crashes
•Vehicles moving without a driver in them contributed to 9 crashes
•Failure to yield to an emergency vehicle contributed to one crash
•Failure to yield to a police vehicle contributed to one crash
•Miscellaneous mechanical defects noted in 22 crashes
•Traffic controls not functioning contributed to one crash
•Distracted driving - using a cell phone, talking to a passenger, eating, drinking, smoking or adjusting the AC or the radio - is a factor in 8 to 13 percent of all crashes, with driver inattention overall a factor in 20 to 50 percent of all crashes, according to a 2003 study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
•Cell phone distractions caused more than 18 percent of driver fatalities in 2009, according to a 2010 report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
•Texting increases a driver’s risk of crashing by 23 times, according to a study this year by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
Source:
