Safety Data & Analysis

Data Sources

The analyses shared below use data developed by the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Highway Safety Section. The main source of the data is owned and maintained by the Virginia DMV.

This data includes only crashes that resulted in over $1500 in damage from both the Arlington County Police Department and Virginia State Police, so the numbers may not directly align with crash reports produced by the Arlington County Police Department.

Systemic Critical Crash Analysis

What is Systemic Safety Analysis?

  • The Vision Zero Action Plan recommends an annual analysis of traffic crash data, including a “systemic” review to identify common factors and trends across crash data that can assist with holistically addressing and preventing common crash factors.
  • When patterns emerge between certain types of crashes and roadway or built environment factors, we can use these connections to identify locations with similar characteristics that may be at risk for certain crash types, even though few or no crashes have been reported.
  • In other words, we try to identify specific combinations of risk factors that have resulted in crashes in the past, and then proactively try to address these risk factors in other similar locations to prevent future crashes. 

2016-2020 Systemic Crash Analysis Results

View the 10 Equity Emphasis Area Systemic Crash Profiles(PDF, 31MB)

View the 10 Countywide Systemic Crash Profiles(PDF, 29MB)

Systemic Implementation Page - Coming Soon! 

How did the 2016-2020 systemic analysis work?

  • Variables analyzed in geospatial relation to the 2016-2020 crash dataset included:
    • Travel Modes Involved (vehicle, pedestrian, bike)
    • Average Daily Traffic (ADT) Volumes
    • Posted Speed Limit
    • Roadway Type
    • Pre-Crash Movements (ex. making left turn, making right turn, proceeding straight, etc.)
    • Crash Factors (ex. alcohol, senior)
    • Crash Types (ex. angle, fixed object, rear end, sideswipe, head on, etc.)
    • Vehicle Type (ex. bike, bus, passenger car, motorcycle, pick-up or SUV, tractor truck, etc.)
    • Proximity to a Bike Share Station
    • Nearby Land Use
    • Equity Indicators
  • By creating a matrix of this information, we identified combinations of crash factors and contextual variables for which crashes were overrepresented in the dataset. These combinations are titled “crash profiles.”
  • The team identified 20 crash profiles: 10 profiles were specific to combinations of crash factors/geographic characteristics common within Equity Emphasis Areas and 10 were combinations of crash factors/geographic characteristics common throughout the entire County.
  • See here(PDF, 270KB) for detailed methodology documentation. 

What’s next?

  • The next step to enhance safety across all “potentially at-risk locations” is to inventory and assess conditions on all segments to ensure that they meet current County standards for signage, pavement markings, and pedestrian ramps.
  • During this inventory staff will also assess the potential for further safety measures from Arlington’s Multimodal Safety Engineering Toolbox and program those additional safety updates, as well.
  • Due to the high volume of roadways to be assessed and considered for systemic improvement, the County will begin by inventorying, reviewing, and implementing improvements within the Equity Emphasis Areas.
  • Once all potentially at-risk locations are reviewed in Equity Emphasis Areas, the team will assess next steps for Countywide application.
  • Look out for the results of the Equity Emphasis Areas inventory and assessment in late 2023 along with communications about the resulting systemic improvements through the Vision Zero Listserv and on the Vision Zero Systemic Safety Improvements page - coming soon.

How will these changes be communicated to the community?

  • Once the work plan for upgrading all crossings and intersections within Equity Emphasis Areas is ready to implement, the County’s communications team will inform the community about upcoming changes.
  • While the changes may be minimum in scale (mostly signage and marking improvements), the advanced community outreach will let residents know what types of changes to anticipate over the course of several months in their neighborhood and educate community members about the positive safety impacts of such changes in the neighborhood.

How often will we do this analysis?

  • Future analysis is currently not identified.
  • This robust geospatial systemic safety analysis was the first of its kind for Arlington County. While the analysis effectively led to a work plan for necessary safety upgrades throughout the County focused on “potentially at-risk areas,” we identified a list of considerations and recommendations that we will utilize for future geospatial systemic analysis in the future to ensure that the analysis and actions are fine-tuned and actionable within a reasonable timeframe and budget.

 

2017-2019 Systemic Crash Analysis

Arlington County staff reviewed all critical crashes – those resulting in serious or fatal injuries to one or more people involved – in detail over three-year reporting period from 2017 to 2019. There were 178 critical crashes in Arlington during this time period, out of a total of 7,549 reported crashes.

When we focused our analysis on critical crashes by mode, we learned that:

  • While crashes involving pedestrians make up only about 5% of all crashes, pedestrian crashes make up almost a quarter of critical crashes and over half of fatal crashes. This data affirms that when a pedestrian is involved in a crash, their injury is much more likely to be severe.
  • Similarly, motorcycles made up lonely 1% of all crashes but over 13% of serious crashes
  • Bicyclists made up about 2% of all reported crashes but 8% of serious crashes.

It is important that our Vision Zero program focuses on these vulnerable road users like pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists, because they are more likely to sustain a serious or fatal injury if there is a crash.

Staff also identified common factors involved in critical crashes:

  • Only about 8% of all crashes involved alcohol, but almost half of fatal crashes involved alcohol – showing that drinking and driving has a large impact on the severity of a crash.
  • While there are fewer people on the road at night, we found that over half of fatal crashes occurred after dark.
  • Speeding and turns were also common circumstances that played a role in serious or fatal crashes.

All this information helps us to understand where to prioritize our efforts to reduce the number of severe or fatal crashes in the County.

2017-2019 Systemic Critical Crash Analysis Report (PDF)


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