SUBMITTED BY

Fahmid Tousif
Graduate Student
Department of Civil Engineering
Vice President, Institute of Transportation
Engineers, Student Chapter
University of Idaho, Moscow, ID-83844.
Email: tous9485@vandals.uidaho.edu

CE 576
SUBMITTED ON
HIGHWAYS September 9, 2017

DESIGN-TRAFFIC
SAFETY
Assignment-1
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Task#1: Describe a change that could be made to a road or intersection that would improve
road safety at the expense of another transportation goal (e.g. traffic operations, public
health, mobility and access, environmental quality or economic growth).
For this task, the intersection of S main st and w 3rd street has been investigated. For the north
and south bound vehicles, there’s in no protected left turn lane. However, at this point though the
traffic influx is less in that direction, dedicating a protected left turn lane in that direction will
increase the safety. It will require to accommodate for three lanes too. Though for this, the delay
in the signal for rest of the traffic will increase, which is in fact a tradeoff to another
transportation goal mobility.

Figure 1: Intersection of S Main St and W 3rd street

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Task#2: Describe a change that could be made to a road or intersection that would improve
one transportation goal (e.g., traffic operations, public health, mobility and access,
environmental quality or economic growth) at the expense of the safety of the road users.
For this task, the intersection of perimeter drive and Pullman road, the opposite can be done,
which is removing the protected left turns bay. This will be a tradeoff to road safety, but since
the road leads to Palouse Mall, it will increase the mobility to this one of the most common
destination in town, therefore will add values on economic growth as well.

Figure 2: intersection of Perimeter Drive and Pullman Road

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Task#3: Describe a change that could be made to a road or intersection that would improve
safety for a road user but not at the expense of other users, or other goals.
In the intersection of Pullman road and Line St. there is no red light camera towards line st. This
red light camera actually record if any vehicle violate the red light, resulting in a citation. This
camera will help to improve safety not at the expense of other users or other transportation goals
like, traffic operations, public health, mobility and access, environmental quality or economic
growth)

Figure 3:Intersection of Pullman road and Line St.

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Task#4: Research a federal transportation law addressed in this chapter and write a
summary about the law, emphasizing the safety aspects.
One of the most important law that has been addressed in this chapter is the law regarding the
blood alcohol limit (BAC) of 0.08 percent. This law has been included as a provision of the
USDOT appropriation act as part of the Transportation Equity Act (TEA-21) legislation.
To address from the beginning, in 1982, Congress developed a series of grant programs which
encouraged states to enact strong and effective impaired driving laws. In 1982 the congress
created section 408 program, which was later modified by section 410 program, both of which
has a basic requirement of 0.10 BAC per se, for the states to be qualified for the basic grant
funds. On May 22, 1998, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century
("TEA 21"), authorizing highway, highway safety, transit and other programs for the next six
years. This act provides $500 million of incentive grants over 6 years to states that have enacted
and are enforcing a .08 BAC per se law. In 1999, there were 15,786 alcohol-related traffic
fatalities in the U.S. - 38% of the total traffic fatalities for the year. This represents an average of
one alcohol-related fatality every 33 minutes. Upon the direction of President Clinton on March
3, 1998, the responsibility has been given to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation. In October 2000, the Department of
Transportation's 2001 Appropriations Act (HR4475) was passed by both chambers of the U.S.
Congress and signed by President Clinton. This Act emphasized that, states must pass a .08 per
se law by 2004 or begin losing federal highway construction funds. States that do not implement
.08 BAC by 2004 will lose 2 percent of their highway money, with the penalty increasing by 2
percent each year, until it reaches 8 percent beginning in Fiscal Year 2007. States that adopt the
.08 limit by 2007 will get back all of the funds lost in previous years. However all 50 states have

Figure 4: Fatalities and Fatality Rate Per 100 M VMT Progression (1965-1915)
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now .08% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as the legal limit for driving under the influence
(DUI) or driving while impaired (DWI), if the person is 21 years old or older.
From the safety point of view, though implementing the BAC limit as a law helped to reduce
crashes but then again, new roads are constructed and the number of cars in the street is getting
increased. Therefore though fatalities and the fatality rate has been decreased over time, at
present its kind of staying on around the same level as presented in the chart.
However, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended reduce the blood-alcohol
level that qualifies as drunken driving to 0.05% to reduce fatal crashes and Utah has already
passed the bill to enact the law which would take effect from December 30, 2018.

Task#5: Find a recent news article that involves road safety (more than just a local news
article on a recent crash) and write a summary describing the effort under taken by the
public agency, how it was received by the public and whether it was shown to be effective in
increasing road safety.
The State of Washington, has implemented the new distracted driving law on July 2017. The
announcement of implementing this law came out pretty surprising, even to its supporters as it
was scheduled to be implemented on January 2019, which later accelerated by the whim of Gov.
Jay Inslee.
Under this new law, handheld uses, including composing or reading any kind of message, picture
or data will be banned. Drivers are also prohibited to use devices while at stop sign or red light
signal. Though drivers can still use a smartphone mounted in a dashboard cradle. The Driving
Under the Influence of Electronics (DUIE) Act, has been considered as a primary offense. The
penalties will be $136, which would get nearly double to $235 on the second distracted driving

Figure 5: Washington State Trooper Marcus Sanchez checks out a woman’s cellphone after pulling her over for driving with the
phone up to her ear last November. (The Seattle Times)
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citation. Though the chief of Washington State Patrol affirmed that, the drivers will just get the
warnings for first few months, to get accustomed with the new law. The state’s law enforcing
agencies has a lack of staffing, they are currently working on this to recruit more patrols in the
state’s highways.
The announcement however welcomed by the public. They think that, implementing this faster,
will make the campaign even better. Lavera wade of Spokane Valley even said to volunteer for
the “fast and furious” outreach program, as she suffered the loss of her grandson, who died while
texting on Highway 195 near Colfax in 2014. Lawmakers however are not planning to fund on
the public education until next year. But the public actually didn’t raise voice against this, as one
of them said that, it is kind of a common sense of not using the phone on hand behind the wheel
of a car while driving and this does not require a great deal of education.
171 of 568 road deaths have been reported in the state in 2015, due to some form of driver’s
distraction. The authorities are expecting to have significant improvement increasing the road
safety. However, necessary data are still not available since the law has been implemented just a
couple of months back.
(Source: Summarized from the report of Mike Lindblom on The Seattle Times on May 18,
2017;
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/heres-what-the-new-distracted-
driving-law-means-to-you-when-it-goes-into-effect-in-july/)

Task#6: Use https://www.govtrack.us to find a transportation bill currently proposed or

under review by Congress. Describe how the legislation would be expected to road safety.
Senior Senator from South Dakota Republican John Thune has sponsored a bill to improve
surface and maritime transportation security, which has been introduced on May 29, 2017 and
now under review of the congress.
This bill has three primary area of focus for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA):
(1) To assess, and implement a risk-based security strategy to address, the vulnerabilities of and
risks to surface transportation in coordination with the Commandant of the Coast Guard, the
vulnerabilities of and risks to maritime transportation systems.
(2)To develop a management oversight strategy that identifies the parties responsible for
implementing the security strategy and includes a plan for implementing the risk-based security
strategy.
(3) To submit a report that describes a risk-based budget and resource allocation plan for surface
transportation sectors that reflects the security strategy, and includes the findings of the security
assessment, description of the actions recommended or taken by the Administrator, the
Commandant of the Coast Guard, or the head of another Federal department or agency to
mitigate the vulnerabilities, recommended changes to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.
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This bill, in addition, will also direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expand the
TSA's explosives detection canine team program. It will require TSA to establish a program to
promote surface transportation security through the training of surface transportation operators
and frontline employees, expands the transportation security card program to allow individuals
subject to credentialing or a background check to apply for a transportation security card, and
requires DHS to evaluate cargo-container scanning technologies. In addition, it will require the
Government Accountability Office to study specified matters related to surface transportation,
expands the permissible uses of railroad security improvement grants, and requires the TSA to
issue a decision on the use of a passenger vetting system by the National Railroad Passenger
Corporation (Amtrak). This way the legislation is expected to add significant values on the road
safety.

Task#7: Research the legal driving Blood Alcohol Content by state in the U.S. and create a
table showing the comparison. Select one state where the legal BAC is lower than the
federal requirement, locate a paper or news article describing how that BAC level was
decided and write a summary.
By defining BAC is the amount of alcohol measured by the weight of the alcohol in a certain
volume of blood in a person's body. The Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC), in the U.S. is
currently set to be 0.08 %, which indicates 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. However, a
driver's BAC can be measured by testing the blood, breath, urine or saliva.
Current Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) in Individual States of the U.S.
State Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)
Alabama 0.08%
Alaska 0.08%
Arizona 0.08%
Arkansas 0.08%
California 0.08%
Colorado 0.08%
Connecticut 0.08%
Delaware 0.08%
Florida 0.08%
Georgia 0.08%
Hawaii 0.08%
Idaho 0.08%
Illinois 0.08%
Indiana 0.08%
Iwoa 0.08%
Kansas 0.08%
Kentucky 0.08%
Louisiana 0.08%
Maine 0.08%
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Maryland 0.08%
Massachusetts 0.08%
Michigan 0.08%
Minnesota 0.08%
Mississippi 0.08%
Missouri 0.08%
Montana 0.08%
Nebraska 0.08%
Nevada 0.08%
New Hampshire 0.08%
New Jersey 0.08%
New Mexico 0.08%
New York 0.08%
North Carolina 0.08%
North Dakota 0.08%
Ohio 0.08%
Oklahoma 0.08%
Oregon 0.08%
Pennsylvania 0.08%
Rhode Island 0.08%
South Carolina 0.08%
South Dakota 0.08%
Tennessee 0.08%
Texas 0.08%
Utah 0.08%
Vermont 0.08%
Virginia 0.08%
Washington 0.08%
West Virginia 0.08%
Wisconsin 0.08%
Wyoming 0.08%

Right now, though all the states have the same BAC requirement, Utah Lawmakers have
however passed a bill on March 8, 2017, which would make the state’s DUI threshold for BAC
to be 0.05 percent, down from 0.08 percent. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, at a blood-alcohol content of 0.05 percent, a driver may face hard time
coordinating, tracking moving objects, trouble steering and responding to emergencies. For
several years, the National Transportation Safety Board has encouraged states to lower their
blood-alcohol content levels to 0.05 percent or even lower, but the local officials played a blind
eye towards it mostly due to the pressure from the hospitality industry. As the bill got signed
eventually by the Utah Governor Gary Herbert, the law would take effect from December 30,
2018.
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How the BAC level was decided

Currently, the United States has a national blood alcohol concentration (BAC) standard of .08
percent. This standard has been set on the basis of research results for over 30 years. It was in
fact President Bill Clinton, who urged on setting new standards to prevent the many tragic and
unnecessary alcohol-related deaths and injuries that occur on the Nation's roads, on March 3,
1998. However, the first commonly used legal limit has been adopted as 0.15 percent for BAC,
back in 1938.
To address from the beginning, in 1982, Congress developed a series of grant programs which
encouraged states to enact strong and effective impaired driving laws. In 1982 the congress
created section 408 program, which was later modified by section 410 program, both of which
has a basic requirement of 0.10 BAC per se, for the states to be qualified for the basic grant
funds. On May 22, 1998, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century
("TEA 21"), authorizing highway, highway safety, transit and other programs for the next six
years. This act provides $500 million of incentive grants over 6 years to states that have enacted
and are enforcing a .08 BAC per se law. In 1999, there were 15,786 alcohol-related traffic
fatalities in the U.S. - 38% of the total traffic fatalities for the year. This represents an average of
one alcohol-related fatality every 33 minutes. Upon the direction of President Clinton on March
3, 1998, the responsibility has been given to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation. In October 2000, the Department of
Transportation's 2001 Appropriations Act (HR4475) was passed by both chambers of the U.S.
Congress and signed by President Clinton. This Act emphasized that, states must pass a .08 per
se law by 2004 or begin losing federal highway construction funds. States that do not implement
.08 BAC by 2004 will lose 2 percent of their highway money, with the penalty increasing by 2
percent each year, until it reaches 8 percent beginning in Fiscal Year 2007. States that adopt the
.08 limit by 2007 will get back all of the funds lost in previous years. However all 50 states have
now .08% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as the legal limit for driving under the influence
(DUI) or driving while impaired (DWI), if the person is 21 years old or older.
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Task#8: Review ITD’s current Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP). What are the
overall goals? Now, choose one of the specific goals 9diffeent than the overall goals); for
this specific goal, discuss which of the strategies you think will be the most effective and
which strategies (if any) seem too vague?

The overall goals of the ITD’s current Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), the goals by 2020
have been enlisted as primary and secondary goals. These are listed as follows:
Primary Goal: to reduce number of traffic deaths to 185 or fewer.
Secondary Goals:
1) To reduce the fatality rate to 1.1 per 100 million annual vehicle miles traveled.
2) To reduce the number of serious injuries to 1,221 or fewer.
3) To reduce the serious injury rate to 7.27 by 100 million annual vehicle miles traveled.

In addition for each of the different high risk behavior, vulnerable roadway users and severe
crash types, individual goal has been set. These specific goals have been listed as follows:
1) For aggressive driving, reducing the 5 year average number of fatalities involving
speeding to 49 or fewer by 2020.
2) For distracted driving, reducing the 5-year average number of distracted driving fatalities
to 38 or fewer by 2020.
3) For impaired driving, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities involving drivers
with a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of 0.08 or greater to 52 or fewer by 2020.
4) For occupant protection, reducing the 5-year average number of unrestrained personal
motor vehicle (PMV) fatalities to 69 or fewer by 2020 and increasing the yearly observed
seat belt use rate to 83.8% or greater by 2020.
5) For bicycle and pedestrian, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities involving
bicyclists to two or fewer by 2020. Reduce the 5-year average number of fatalities
involving pedestrians to 10 or fewer by 2020.
6) For mature drivers, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities involving drivers 65
years of age or older to 33 or fewer by 2020.
7) For motorcycles, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities involving motorcycle
riders/drivers to 20 or fewer by 2020. Reduce the 5-year average number of unhelmeted
motorcycle fatalities to 11 or fewer by 2020.
8) For Youthful drivers, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities involving drivers
age 20 or younger to 24 or fewer by 2020.
9) For commercial motor vehicles, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities
involving commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) to 54 or fewer by 2020.
10) For intersections, reducing the 5-year average number of intersection related fatalities to
32 or fewer by 2020.
11) For lane departure, reducing the 5-year average number of single vehicle run-off road
fatalities to 94 or fewer by 2020.
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For the impaired driving, reducing the 5-year average number of fatalities involving drivers with
a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of 0.08 or greater to 52 or fewer by 2020, has been set as the
goal. For this specific goal, I think the most effective strategy will be the first one which is to
continue the education, to support and provide training of prosecutors, law enforcement and the
judiciary to improve the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of impaired driving cases.
This includes, but is not limited to, continued support of the Idaho Traffic Safety Resource
Prosecutor (TSRP) and the Idaho State Impaired Driving Coordinator (SIDC). I think this is the
most effective one, as when every related person, working for this specific goal will work
together, they will be able to see the whole picture and will be able to detect the loopholes if any
in the system. However, they may came up with new recommendation as an outcome of their
improved investigation. For example as stated, in the previous research, the state of Utah has
already passed and signed a bill on lowering blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.05 percent.
In Idaho, they can come up with some more innovative and fruitful measures.

To me the most vague one seemed to be the one, which says about the supporting of the impaired
driving high visibility enforcement campaigns. As this strategy does not indicate how they are
going to support the campaign and what are the scope of improvements in this aspect.

References:
1. National Center for Statistics and Analysis. (2016, August). 2015 motor vehicle crashes:
Overview. (Traffic Safety Facts Research Note. Report No. DOT HS 812 318). Washington, DC:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
2. Idaho Transportation Department. (2016). Idaho-Strategic Highway Safety Plan 2016-2020;
Boise, Idaho.
3. Surface and Maritime Transportation Security Act (S. 763). (n.d.). Retrieved September 07, 2017,
from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s763
4. The Seattle Times, (2017) heres-what-the-new-distracted-driving-law-means-to-you-when-it-
goes-into-effect-in-july, Report by Mike Lindblom on May 18, 2017.
5. Us news (2017), utah-lawmakers-pass-toughest-dui-limit-in-us-at-05-percent, Report by
Michelle Price on March 9, 2017.
6. Road Safety Fundamentals