Partnerships Help North Carolina Manage Speed

NHTSA · 2020 · ROSA P / United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration

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Summary

This report details the collaborative efforts of North Carolina stakeholders, led by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), to reduce speeding-related fatalities through a Speed Management Action Plan (SMAP). The initiative was motivated by alarming statistics from 2015, when 40% of traffic fatalities in North Carolina involved speeding vehicles. To address this crisis, partners developed a comprehensive plan for Randolph County that assessed local speeding issues, identified countermeasures, and outlined actionable steps for state, county, and other partners to prevent crashes. The implementation strategy focused on three primary areas: overhauling speed limit setting, establishing safety corridors, and involving the judicial branch. To address inconsistencies between rural and urban speed limit practices, NCDOT partnered with the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State University to develop new guidelines. These guidelines expanded beyond the traditional 85th percentile speed metric to include factors such as land use, road design, pedestrian volume, and bicycling activity. NCDOT committed to conducting speed studies on approximately 50,000 miles of rural roads with a statutory limit of 55 mph, aiming to complete 1,500 miles of studies annually using a data-driven prioritization process. Additionally, the agency collaborated with law enforcement, legislators, and district attorneys to designate safety corridors and enforce penalties. A significant component of the plan involved engaging the court system to prioritize speeding violations. In designated corridors, tickets were routed through general courts rather than traffic courts to ensure judges treated them as high-priority offenses that could not be pleaded down. This collaboration extended to educational initiatives, such as the StreetSafe Driving Program in Johnston County. Developed by the district attorney’s office, this program requires young drivers with citations to attend a 4.5-hour class taught by law enforcement and fire personnel, with mandatory parental attendance for minors. The curriculum utilizes first-hand crash response experiences to promote safe driving habits. The results of these interventions have been substantial. By 2018, speeding-related fatalities in North Carolina dropped to 23% of all fatalities, a 17% decrease from the 2015 baseline. Building on this success, NCDOT designated speeding as a focus area in its Vision Zero initiative and included speed management in its 2019 Strategic Highway Safety Plan. Future strategies include establishing additional safety corridors and considering adjustments to statutory speed limits, such as lowering the rural road limit from 55 to 45 mph. The report highlights that multi-agency collaboration and data-driven policy changes are effective tools for improving roadway safety.

Key finding

The implementation of a comprehensive Speed Management Action Plan in North Carolina was associated with a decrease in speeding-related fatalities from 40 percent in 2015 to 23 percent in 2018.

Methodology

other

Provenance

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Topics

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• speed management