Impaired Active Transportation Users

Burbidge, Shaunna K.; Singleton, Patrick A.; Azra, Nuzhat; Subedi, Atul · 2023 · ROSA P / Utah. Dept. of Transportation. Research Division

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Summary

This study addresses the rising prevalence of alcohol and drug involvement in active transportation fatalities, specifically among pedestrians and bicyclists. While driver fatalities have declined, alcohol involvement remains high among fatally injured pedestrians, who exhibit the highest prevalence of elevated blood alcohol concentrations compared to other road users. The research was motivated by a lack of detailed understanding regarding the environmental, demographic, and infrastructural factors contributing to these crashes, as well as limitations in crash narratives that often cease investigation once intoxication is identified. The primary objective was to create a comprehensive profile of impaired active transportation fatalities in Utah to inform prevention strategies. The researchers conducted an in-depth evaluation of active transportation crashes in Utah from 2010 to 2021. They filtered data for crashes involving impaired pedestrians and bicyclists with fatal or suspected serious injury severity. The study integrated multiple data sources, including Utah crash data, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Location Database, US Census data, and geographic shapefiles from the Utah Geographic Resource Center and Utah Department of Transportation. Statistical methods included descriptive analyses, bivariate analysis, Chi-Square tests, and point-biserial correlations to examine associations between impairment status and various factors such as demographics, roadway geometry, lighting, and land use. Key findings indicate that impaired active transportation users were, on average, older (38 years) than non-impaired users (31 years). Impairment was significantly associated with crashes occurring on weekends and overnight, in rural areas, and in neighborhoods with smaller household sizes, fewer workers per household, and lower intersection density. Alcohol-impaired crashes were more prevalent in areas with higher liquor facility density and, for pedestrians, in areas with high job accessibility via transit. Conversely, drug-impaired bicycle crashes showed a positive association with proximity to food banks, with no significant link to liquor facilities. Regarding crash severity, severe crashes involving impaired users were more likely to occur near grocery stores, and severity decreased as distance from grocery or convenience stores increased. For alcohol-impaired bicyclists, distance to the nearest crosswalk had a significant positive association with impairment status. The study concludes that impaired active transportation crashes are influenced by a complex interplay of temporal, demographic, and built-environment factors rather than intoxication alone. The findings highlight specific environmental contributors, such as lighting conditions, infrastructure gaps, and land-use patterns, that exacerbate risks for impaired users. These insights provide the Utah Department of Transportation with evidence-based direction for developing targeted safety interventions, including improved infrastructure design and policy measures to mitigate crashes involving intoxicated pedestrians and bicyclists.

Key finding

Impaired active transportation users were more likely to be involved in crashes in rural areas, neighborhoods with smaller household sizes, and locations with higher liquor availability, with specific environmental factors like distance to crosswalks and food banks distinguishing alcohol and drug impairment patterns.

Methodology

field_study

Sample size: 299

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• vru crash typology
• demographic disparities
• incidence prevalence
• cyclist safety

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes