Jan. 23, 2023 – AXIOS – Despite Austin’s efforts to tamp down traffic deaths, they just keep going up. The big picture: Austin voters approved $65 million in bonds in 2020 to carry out traffic safety measures to prevent roadway injuries, but a record 122 people died on Austin roads last year. By the numbers: Traffic fatalities are going up on a per capita basis, too, from 7.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2018 to 11.5 in 2022, per city statistics. (Serious injuries have generally held steady.) Most of the crashes happen on state highways such as I-35 — wide roads that are designed for higher speeds. Yes, but: The city has recorded a 31% decrease in serious injury and fatal crashes on the stretches of about 20 roads where the city has made improvements over the last half-dozen years.
These areas include: East Oltorf Street and Parker Lane, Lakeline Boulevard and 183, and Slaughter Lane and Menchaca Road.
“Changing the design of our streets is the most effective strategy for reducing severe crashes over time,” per a 2022 city analysis.
Between the lines: Austin has a Vision Zero policy that calls for safer street systems, lower speed limits and redesigning the most dangerous intersections.
Vision Zero had a ten-year goal set upon the initial policy adoption back in 2015, and “the city has consistently recognized that’s an ambitious goal and something that no government of our size has accomplished in such a short time frame,” city transportation department spokesperson Jeff Stensland tells Axios.
Of note: Austin authorities can implement traffic safety measures only on streets the city owns — roads and highways overseen by the Texas Department of Transportation are under state control.
What they’re saying: “It is illogical not to have a goal to end traffic deaths,” Jay Blazek Crossley, who oversees the nonprofit Farm & City, which pushes for Vision Zero plans across Texas, tells Axios. “In general, our society has willfully ignored the toll. Part of it is simply pulling the blinders off all our eyes and saying, ‘No, this really sucks.'”
Arrest warrant issued in 2022 fatal crash in north Austin, man now faces manslaughter charge
Jan. 20, 2023 – AUSTIN (KXAN) – In a court document filed Thursday, a man was charged with manslaughter in connection to an October 2022 crash in north Austin that resulted in a death. Jealious Anthony Ordillano, 32, was driving his pickup truck when he ran through a red light at the intersection of McCallen Pass and Center Lake Drive and struck a sedan. The driver of the sedan was identified as Jim Chan who died a few days. According to the affidavit, Ordillano said he might have fallen asleep or closed his eyes and may have run the red light. Data showed Ordillano’s vehicle’s brake was never applied before the collision and the pre-crash speed was approximately 62mph.
Man to serve 7 years for 2020 fatal hit-and-run in Buda
Jan 17, 2023 — HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — A man will serve seven years in prison following his involvement in a fatal hit-and-run in Buda back in October 2020. Jeffrey Conzemius pled guilty to an accident involving death charge on Oct. 18. Police arrested Conzemius in October 2020 for the fatal crash that killed 67-year-old Viola Garcez in the 15300 block of Interstate 35 in Buda.
Travis County sentences man to 5 years for 2019 crash that killed woman
Jan 17, 2023 – AUSTIN (KXAN) — A man has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to his involvement in a 2019 crash that resulted in a woman dying. Michael Garcia pled guilty to an accident involving death charge on Aug. 10, per Travis County online records. Police told KXAN in 2019 Garcia was accused of crashing a truck into a tree in southeast Austin following an attempted robbery before fleeing the scene, with passenger Josephine Guerra dying from her injuries. Garcia was identified as the driver of the vehicle, with witnesses telling police two other men fled with him from the scene.
Man given 10-year probation for 2021 intoxication manslaughter in east Austin
Jan. 16, 2023 – AUSTIN (KXAN) — A man was sentenced to 10 years of probation after a 2021 crash that killed one person. The driver was found to be intoxicated at the scene. Christian Ramos, 26, pled guilty to intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle in November. He was sentenced to 10 years of probation in December plus 300 community service hours. In January 2021, Ramos was arrested after a fatal crash on the Interstate 35 service road near the Fiesta Mart on 38th Street. The affidavit said surveillance video showed Ramos’ car traveling northbound on I-35 as another car traveled westbound on East 38 1/2 Street. At a signal where all lights were flashing, Ramos hit the other car at a high rate of speed, police said. Police identified Khairullah Danish, 41, as the other driver. Danish was pronounced dead at the scene. Ramos told police he drank “a couple” of alcoholic drinks before driving and smoked marijuana during the day. An officer determined that Ramos lost the normal use of his physical and mental faculties necessary to safely operate a motor vehicle by the introduction of alcohol or drugs into his body.
DETROIT (AP) — Traffic crashes in the U.S. cost society $340 billion in one year, or just over $1,000 for each of the country’s 328 million people, according to a study by safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it studied crashes in calendar year 2019 that killed an estimated 36,500 people, injured 4.5 million and damaged 23 million vehicles.
“This report drives home just how devastating traffic crashes are for families, and the economic burden they place on society,” Ann Carlson, acting administrator of the agency, said in a statement Tuesday. With fatal crashes rising dramatically in 2021, the Transportation Department began pushing a “safe systems approach” to reduce crashes. It includes safer roads, behavior, vehicles and speeds, as well as better after-crash care.
In the report, researchers examined several NHTSA databases as well as crashes not reported to police that were gathered through consumer surveys, NHTSA’s statement said. The cost of the crashes amounted to 1.6% of the $21.4 trillion gross domestic product in 2019, the agency said.
People not directly involved in crashes pay for roughly 75% of all crash costs through insurance premiums, taxes, lost time from road congestion, excess fuel consumption and environmental impacts, the study found.
The study also calculated that from 1975 to 2019, seat belt use saved 404,000 lives and prevented $17.8 trillion in societal harm, NHTSA said.
Nearly 43,000 people were killed on U.S. roads in 2021, the highest number in 16 years as Americans returned to the roads. The 10.5% jump over 2020 numbers was the largest percentage increase since NHTSA began its fatality data collection system in 1975. Estimates for the first nine months of last year show that crash deaths dropped 0.2% compared with the same period of 2021. But the government says the number is still unacceptably high. In an effort to reduce the deaths, the federal government is sending $5 billion in aid to cities and localities to slow vehicles, carve out bike paths and nudge commuters to public transit.
December 5, 2022 — AUSTIN (KXAN) — Officials from the City of Austin’s Vision Zero program reported a 30% reduction in crashes this year on improved roadways, compared to 2021. Lewis Leff, Austin Transportation Department’s transportation safety officer, delivered new findings during a public safety commission meeting Monday. Overall, the Vision Zero program found an uptick in combined fatal and serious injury crashes this year, with the total number up 4% in 2022 compared to 2021. Approximately 52% of serious or fatal crashes happened between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., with 62% of pedestrian fatalities happening during those same overnight hours. Comparing city-owned versus state-owned roadways, state-owned roads account for a higher volume of serious injury and fatal crashes, he said.
When looking at overall city trends, both the number of pedestrian and motorcyclist serious injuries and fatalities have increased in 2022 compared to 2021. Leff said pedestrian serious injury and fatal crashes lead ahead of severe and fatal motorcycle crashes — a new trend emerging.
This comes as national data shows an overall increase in fatalities, approaching a 20% increase over 10-year period, Leff said.But along roadways that have undergone safety improvements, Leff said the program is seeing a decline in both overall crashes and serious injury and fatal crashes. Thirteen intersections have undergone improvements, with a 31% decrease in serious injury and fatal crashes along those improved roads.
Some of those enhancements include reduced speed limits, altering left turn signals and adding protected turn options as well as adding leading pedestrian intervals. Those pedestrian intervals give residents more time to cross a roadway before a light turns green and oncoming or turning traffic enters the road.
“Knowing what’s happening at the same period of time at different locations that are similar, the ones where we have invested money and done treatments are seeing significant reductions compared to the ones where we’re not doing that,” Leff said. “So it’s a really positive outcome.”
Austin Monitor – October 6, 2022 — Traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries in the city of Austin have increased in 2022 compared with the five-year average, highlighting the barriers that stand in the way of the city’s Vision Zero goals.
Still, the overall trend is one of increasing fatalities and serious injuries. As of Sept. 21, there have been 73 traffic-related fatalities, 400 serious injuries and 9,451 total crashes within the city limits this year, according to the Transportation Department’s Vision Zero dashboard. Although fatalities are slightly down year-over-year, both fatalities and serious injuries have outpaced the five-year average.
Joel Meyer, a transportation planner for the city’s Vision Zero program, told the Public Safety Commission Monday that many crashes go unreported, meaning that these numbers are likely conservative.
“A lot of times people don’t want to call the police,” he said. “They may not think they’re injured or things like that.”
Meyer added that Austin’s increase in traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries is in line with national trends and may be another side effect of the pandemic.
“We think that as the roads sort of became less traveled that actually increased opportunities for speeding and risky behaviors,” he said. “We’ve seen a big increase in impaired driving and in speeding and all kinds of risky behaviors that are leading to those increases that we’re seeing over the last few years.”
Like other public health threats, crashes disproportionately impact Austin’s communities of color. Black people account for 7.8 percent of the city’s population but 13.7 percent of the traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries in Austin this year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the dashboard.
To reverse these trends, Meyer said the Transportation Department is focused on redesigning Austin’s streets to be safe for all modes of transportation: motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists.
In 2020, Vision Zero staff identified 13 high-injury roadways ripe for safety improvements. These could include switching from permissive left turns to protected ones, visibility enhancement and refreshed crosswalks. Preliminary data show a 10 percent reduction in serious injury and fatal crashes on the select roadways compared to the city as a whole in 2020, according to the Transportation Department’s 2021 Vision Zero Update. The Vision Zero program, which originated in Sweden in the 1990s, aims to end traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. City Council adopted the framework in 2015. Since then, the city has implemented a wide range of interventions, including large-scale engineering projects like intersection improvements and urban trail construction; safety improvements along high-injury roadways; speed limit changes and traffic calming treatments; and a parking ticket waiver program, which incentivizes drivers to leave their cars overnight rather than risk driving under the influence.
But this success has been limited.
“We’ve seen pretty substantial decreases in severe crashes at the locations that we’ve been able to treat,” he said. “The challenge we have is being able to scale that up to the almost 300 square miles of the Austin area.”
There are other challenges. Transportation works with law enforcement agencies, like the Austin Police Department, on targeted enforcement for the most dangerous driving behaviors. But Meyer said long-standing police staffing shortages can limit the number of officers available for this kind of assignment.
Jim Dale, assistant director of the Transportation Department, also points to progress on the horizon. He cites the city’s forthcoming emergency vehicle preemption system, which will allow emergency vehicles to send a message to city-owned intersection signals ahead of their arrival during an emergency response. The signal will then adjust its timing to grant the emergency vehicle a green light.
“The two things that helps with, of course, (are) the quickness of getting to an incident, but also the safety of those first responders entering an intersection is very important,” he told commissioners.
City Council approved an advance funding agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation in 2019 to design and implement the system, which Dale said is expected to debut late next year.
August 25, 2022 – ROUTE50 – The number of road deaths in the United States continues to climb, with the federal government reporting Wednesday that 9,560 people died in the first quarter of 2022. That’s a 7% increase from 2021, and the highest number in 20 years. “When everyday life came to a halt in March 2020, risky behaviors skyrocketed, and traffic fatalities spiked. We’d hoped these trends were limited to 2020. But sadly, they aren’t,” said Steven Cliff, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, during a call with reporters. NHTSA estimated that 29 states and the District of Columbia saw increases in fatalities over 2021.
The agency projected that there would be stark differences among regions of the country in those results. The highest increases came in the mid-Atlantic region, which saw a 52% jump in deaths. The region includes Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. New England saw the second-highest increase, with a jump of 23%. The greater New York area had 18% more fatalities. On the other hand, the far western states of California, Arizona and Hawaii collectively saw an 11% decrease in road deaths. It was the only region that saw a downturn in projected fatalities, but much of the South and interior West saw relatively little change from the previous year.
The good news for southern states, though, is tempered by the fact that they had the highest fatality rates in the country in early 2021 and continued to do so (along with the mid-Atlantic) in early 2022. The data for individual states tends to be much more volatile, particularly for low-population states, because of small sample sizes. Delaware saw by far the biggest percentage increase of any state, as the number of people killed there more than doubled. The 50 people who died in early 2022 was 163% more than the 19 who died in early 2021. Connecticut, Virginia, Vermont and the District of Columbia saw the next-highest increases, in terms of percentages. North Carolina, on the other hand, saw the biggest increase in the number of people killed. This year, 171 more people died in the first quarter in the state than last year. The next-highest increases were for Virginia (122), New York (64), Texas (57), Illinois (55) and Maryland (54).
Traffic deaths have been climbing for nearly a decade, but the increase has been particularly stark since the pandemic started. An estimated 42,000 people died on U.S. roads in 2021, or more than 10,000 more people a year than a decade ago.
Deaths Up, But No New Approaches
Safety advocates are growing increasingly frustrated that the issue has not sparked more concern – or at least a new approach – among policymakers at the federal, state and local levels.
At the federal level, NHTSA regulates the safety of vehicles, but it has been the subject of frequent criticism for a variety of issues. Advocates have complained that NHTSA has:
Not clamped down on automakers that produce increasingly large vehicles with bigger blind spots for drivers.
Not reined in Tesla for promoting “self-driving” features that cause crashes and unsafe driving.
Allowed automakers to include interactive elements that could distract drivers.
Not tested vehicles for their impact on pedestrians, cyclists or other vehicles in crashes.
Part of the problem has been the lack of a permanent leader. The agency went five years without a permanent head, and Cliff only received U.S. Senate confirmation in May. But last week, he announced he would be leaving the post next month to head the California Air Resources Board, a pollution control agency where he worked previously. “Today’s awful news underscores the urgency of implementing [the Transportation Department’s National Roadway Safety Strategy] and the need for strong and consistent leadership at NHTSA,” wrote the Governors Highway Safety Association in a statement.
The GHSA and other safety groups have encouraged President Biden to nominate a replacement for Cliff who “has roadway and vehicle safety expertise and is focused on pursuing and implementing countermeasures that will work to address the current crisis.” That would be in contrast to Cliff, who came from an environmental background. One of NHTSA’s other functions is to regulate fuel efficiency of new vehicles, which the Biden and Obama administrations used to further their goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, safety advocates continue to fight over the best way to reduce traffic deaths. Established players like GHSA and Mothers Against Drunk Driving have emphasized the need for better enforcement of traffic laws.
In fact, Cliff’s remarks about the new road fatality statistics came at the beginning of an event promoting a “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign for the upcoming Labor Day weekend, a recurring effort promoted by NHTSA. Nearly a third of road deaths involve someone who is intoxicated, Cliff pointed out. But other groups have become frustrated with that approach, arguing that the impetus should be on government – rather than individuals – to address dangers on the road. They’ve called for things such as speed regulators on vehicles, regulations to limit the size and weight of new vehicles, and street designs that encourage slow driving and protecting people outside of vehicles.
“We call these ‘traffic accidents’ as though each was an unrelated snowflake, but really these are near-identical profit-driven corporate killings enabled by government dereliction of duty,” wrote Jessie Singer, author of the book “There Are No Accidents,” on Twitter Wednesday. The Biden administration has largely tried to avoid picking sides in the argument, by calling for improvements across the transportation sector. In January, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg unveiled the Biden administration’s approach for tackling road safety. The plan stressed the need for “safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds and better post-crash care.”
“We are going to team up with governors, mayors and county executives who are the ones who actually design and maintain so much of American road systems. Our strategy gives government at every level a shared roadmap, and we’re counting on their help, just as they can count on ours,” Buttigieg said when unveiling the strategy.
Daniel C. Vock is a senior reporter for Route Fifty based in Washington, D.C.
In January 2019, Lewis Leff began as Austin’s first transportation safety officer. The new role signaled the city’s commitment to attaining its Vision Zero policy, aimed at eliminating traffic-related deaths and serious injuries, which was implemented in 2015.
The initiative has yielded a mixed bag. The number of traffic fatalities grew from 79 in 2016 to a record 116 in 2021. On the other hand, the number of serious injuries, defined on Austin’s Vision Zero dashboard as any injury that “prevents continuation of normal activities,” dropped from 529 in 2016 to 518 in 2021.
Leff said he knew change in Austin wouldn’t happen overnight, pointing to gradual progress in Sweden, the country that pioneered the Vision Zero model and reduced road fatalities nationwide by roughly 50%-60% over 30 years. “The fact is we’ve got a transportation network that’s been built out for over 80 years, that’s been prioritizing the movement of people in vehicles over everything else, and that particular aspect … doesn’t just change in a year or in five years or whatever. It’s going to take significant time and effort and resources to retrofit that system [to] achieve the policy goals that we put in place as a city, related to people outside of vehicles being able to move around freely and safely as well.”
The number of pedestrians killed on Austin roads consistently ranks second, behind motorists, as the most common travel mode fatality, but in 2022, pedestrian fatalities have outpaced motorist fatalities.
Every June 7, Anna and Eric Bauereis receive an update from Farm & City, a nonprofit that has led road safety efforts, detailing Vision Zero progress. The date marks the anniversary of a driver striking their son, Alexei, when he attempted to cross an intersection on Spicewood Springs Road in Northwest Austin with a friend in 2016.
As with many traffic fatalities, several factors led to Alexei’s death, including speed. “Literally, the kid did have old headlights, a blurry head screen. He was going too fast, you know, just a whole bunch of things that all hit at the wrong time,” Eric said of the driver who hit Alexei. He added that the crosswalk signal did not illuminate at that intersection after a certain hour, even if a pedestrian pressed the button.
Transportation experts cite speed as one of the most important factors in serious crashes. “We always say that speed is the primary factor,” Leff said. City Council is slated to consider changes to speed limits on over 50 roads during its June 16 meeting.
However, the Austin Transportation Department does not manage all roads in Austin, making it critical that the city get buy-in from other road operators, such as the Texas Department of Transportation and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. The roads managed by TxDOT tend to be larger and faster (including I-35 and MoPac) and as a result see the most dangerous crashes. Leff said TxDOT roads have accounted for about 74% of fatalities this year in Austin. He added that ATD is in constant communication with TxDOT about improvements and the two have a great relationship. He noted the city manages traffic lights on TxDOT roads, including the I-35 frontage roads.
“They’re still building frontage roads at 50 miles an hour, so they say, ‘Oh, well, we’re adding shared-use paths.’ Well, they’re putting a shared-use path next to very high-speed traffic.” – Safe Streets Austin Board member Heyden Black Walker
TxDOT has a Road to Zero initiative, which aims to cut traffic fatalities in half by 2035 and eliminate them by 2050. The state has this year reduced speeds on some Austin-area roads, including segments of SH 29 in Williamson County, RM 1826 in the southwest, and FM 973 in the east. And it emphasizes three safety priorities – engineering, education, and enforcement – that play a role in reducing speed.
Some mobility advocates say the state transportation agency should do more. Heyden Black Walker, a Safe Streets Austin Board member, said TxDOT needs to design roads for lower speeds. “They’re still building frontage roads at 50 miles an hour, so they say, ‘Oh, well, we’re adding shared-use paths.’ Well, they’re putting a shared-use path next to very high-speed traffic. I mean, they’re designing it for 50, which means a lot of people are actually going faster than 50, and the human body just can’t stand that kind of impact,” Black Walker said.
When the pandemic first ground traffic to halt, many expected the outcome would be fewer fatal car crashes. The opposite happened. Fewer cars on the road left drivers with a greater opportunity to speed and led to more violent crashes. “We’re coming to realize that congestion actually is a limiting factor on speed. It actually can really help,” Black Walker said. “I kind of disagree with the drumbeat that we need to solve congestion for several reasons, but that’s one of them.” She added that while more congestion might lead to more accidents, those accidents tend to be minor because drivers are traveling at lower speeds.
ATD has found success with a few targeted changes in recent years. In 2020 the Vision Zero team identified 13 high-injury roadways where the city implemented low-cost changes, including installing flashing yellow arrows, protected left-turn phasing, and pedestrian head starts at intersections. A city report last year found a 17% decrease in serious injury and fatal crashes on those roadways compared to the previous three-year average. (Leff notes that including serious injuries gives ATD more data to analyze and makes it “easier to see patterns.”)
As for the state roads, Kathy Sokolic, co-founder of Central Texas Families for Safe Streets and a Safe Streets Austin Board member, said advocacy efforts earned a win during the last legislative session. “The one bill that we did get passed in the last few sessions was Stop for Pedestrians; before, [a driver] only had to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and if you hit them there was no consequence,” she said.
The law was particularly important to her, as she lost a nephew who was hit by a car while crossing a street in the Mueller neighborhood. Sokolic would like to see traffic safety improve, but acknowledges that infrastructure projects move slowly. The city has “put a lot of really great infrastructure in,” Sokolic said. “Pedestrian hybrid beacons that give people a safe place to cross that can stop the traffic. They have reduced speed limits throughout the city. But I think it just takes time.”
January 3, 2021 – Austin Statesman – It was early on a Monday morning, when he was weary from searching Austin all night for his sister and niece, that family patriarch Elisandro Almanza said it felt as though death had engulfed his body as he clicked on a news article about an 18-wheeler crash on Interstate 35. Elisandro — who had passed by the same crash site a half-dozen times Oct. 25 while frantically searching for 37-year-old Juana Almanza and her 15-year-old daughter, Kimberlye — said it didn’t cross his mind that the vehicle could have belonged to his sister.
It was charred beyond recognition, smashed beyond identification. So he, along with other family members, kept searching. Elisandro, hearing Juana’s voicemail in the back of his mind saying her car had broken down the night before, scrolled through news articles at daybreak as a last-ditch effort to help find the pair. One article from that night showed the same vehicle crash on I-35 in North Austin, but this time he recognized the rim of a tire. And instantly he knew his beloved sister and niece were gone. Almanza and her daughter died in their vehicle after an 18-wheeler struck them as they were parked on the shoulder with their hazard lights activated. The vehicle caught fire on impact.
The Almanzas were among 12 people, including Austin police officer Lewis “Andy” Traylor, to die in 18-wheeler crashes in the city in 2021. As of Friday, Austin police had recorded a total of 119 traffic deaths — the most in the nearly four decades that the department has kept such records.
Austin police, seeing the spike in traffic deaths, point to an officer shortage that has left shifts understaffed, prompting leadership to disband a unit dedicated to cracking down on drunken driving and another to catch speeders. Officers in those units, originally part of Huling’s team of 20, have been moved to patrol.
The department is about 200 officers short of the 1,809 for which it is budgeted — much of it the result of the City Council voting to eliminate three cadet training academy classes in 2020. The staffing shortage led to a citywide vote Nov. 2 that would have bolstered the force by requiring the city to hire hundreds of additional officers and maintain two officers per 1,000 residents. The proposition failed by more than 56,000 votes, with 68% of voters opposed and 31% in favor.
Fewer citations, arrests
As a result of the shortages, officers are issuing significantly fewer citations for speeding and making fewer arrests for drunken driving — two factors commonly linked to wrecks. In the 2021 fiscal year, which went through the end of September, the Austin Municipal Court reported 4,351 citations for speeding. That was down 43% from 2020 (7,751), 69% from 2019 (14,399), 80% from 2018 (22,598) and 88% from 2017 (39,179).
Arrests for drunken driving are also down. Travis County saw an average of 17 new cases filed per day in 2017 and again in 2018. That dipped to 15 per day in 2019 and 12 in 2020 — when large social gatherings didn’t happen for much of the year and bars operated at reduced capacity, if at all. In 2021, about 11 arrests for drunken driving are made on a given day in Travis County, according to authorities. Incidents involving driving while intoxicated led to at least eight deaths for Austin, according to police records.
Huling said Vision Zero used some grant money to crack down on drunken drivers by funding overtime for officers to help with the city’s no-refusal program, in which officers are on call to draw blood from suspected drunken drivers. But the overtime positions often go unfilled, he said. “They’re simply too busy or picking up overtime elsewhere to help backfill patrol because of our low staffing that they’re just not doing it,” Huling explained, saying the same issue is happening across the department. Police Chief Joe Chacon said he has requested assistance in enforcing traffic laws from other law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Travis County sheriff’s office.
“Our officers are doing a good job of it, but at the same time, if they’re stuck on a priority call, they don’t have the opportunity to proactively work on traffic enforcement,” he said. Even with help from other departments, police Sgt. Sandra Benningfield, who investigates fatal crashes, said her unit is overworked and understaffed with eight detectives. She believes her team should have about a dozen investigators to function most efficiently.
“One of the hurdles, or one of the things we had to adapt to, is all of the DWI units going back to patrol,” she said. “When we have a fatal crash with a DWI, or suspected DWI driver, we have to work around trying to make sure that we have certified DWI officers responding to help investigate those cases. It’s a lot of work for the team.” DWIs aside, Benningfield said trends for fatal crashes appear to be similar in 2020 and 2021, with many a result of speeding on major highways such as Interstate 35, MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and Texas 71.
According to a map from the city, 27 fatal crashes through the end of October happened on or near I-35. At least 27 deaths in 2021 were a result of single-vehicle crashes, the majority being those drivers running into trees, poles and concrete barricades. Pedestrian deaths in 2021 appear to be on par with 2020, making up about 34% of fatal crashes in 2020 and about 36% in 2021, according to Benningfield. However, one trend reemerged in 2021, and it claimed the life of an Austin police officer — deadly collisions involving semis and 18-wheelers.
Tears poured down Melissa Traylor’s cheeks as she sat down with the American-Statesman in late November for her first media interview since her husband, Austin police officer Andy Traylor, died in a wreck July 31. Early that morning, she learned her husband was brain dead after crashing into an 18-wheeler while responding to a shooting call in East Austin. “They said he was in critical condition,” remembered Traylor, now a widowed mother of five young children. The knock on the door had startled her as she slept beside her two young sons. “They said time was of the essence and I needed to get to the hospital. It was the longest 45-minute drive of my life.”
Andy Traylor, affectionately called Captain America by his children, crashed into the side of an 18-wheeler that had blocked the road while making an illegal U-turn in East Austin, police said. Melissa, along with her oldest daughter, spent four days by Andy’s side in the hospital, trying to make sense of their loss.
“They believe he was brain dead from the second that the accident happened,” Melissa Traylor said. “The only reason we kept him alive for a few more days was to preserve his organs so he could save as many people as possible.”
Traylor said they waited for the swelling to go down in her husband’s face before bringing in her younger children to say their final farewells to their “Captain.” He was a lover of Marvel movies, the film “Top Gun,” his job policing in East Austin and, most of all, his family. “It was horrifying to see the extent of what happened to him,” Melissa said. “From such a handsome, stunning young man to such a horrific accident and the aftermath. And that’s what the kids got to see last. “It’s hard, but they are good kids. They’re strong. He would be proud of them.”
Benningfield, who was charged with investigating Traylor’s death and others involving 18-wheelers, said police aren’t sure why fatalities with big rigs increased in 2021. The 12 deaths caused by 18-wheeler crashes accounted for 10% of the total traffic deaths in 2021. It was an overall increase in deaths from 2020 (one; 1% of all traffic deaths), 2019 (five; 5%) and 2018 (11, 14%). “They’re all kind of different,” Benningfield said. “There just seems like there are more of them. We haven’t noticed a trend of a particular reason why there are more of them.”
John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association, said he believes it goes back to more people on the roads after the wide release of COVID-19 vaccines, along with more speeding and distracted driving.
“I was certainly anticipating an uptick because we saw a downtick during COVID,” he said. “A less congested highway is definitely a safer highway. We learned through conversations we had with APD during the course of COVID that, while the number of accidents went down, the severity went up.
“When there was nobody driving out there, folks were driving faster. There was more distracted driving at greater speeds, and that translation was not positive.”
The Texas Trucking Association even lost one of its own truckers in 2021, which is unusual because of the protection the large vehicles can provide to drivers.
Michael Moore, 51, of Tennessee was driving his white 2006 Kenworth semi on Interstate 35 around Georgetown when he crashed into a guardrail separating the upper and lower deck of the highway, according to authorities. Investigators were unable to determine why he crashed, according to his daughter Miranda Moore. “We were very close,” Moore said. “I was honestly ‘daddy’s little girl.’ He was my best friend, and his grandkids were his everything.” Moore said she always had brief moments of concern about her dad being on the road full-time but added that she had some level of comfort knowing he had been a truck driver long before she was born. However, she still called him each morning on her way to work to make sure he was safe and not too lonely. “Before he died, he was planning to go park his truck and come here and see us, but he never got the chance,” she said. “He was just the most outgoing person you’d ever meet in your life. He just really, really loved his job. He loved trucking and everything about it.”
Melissa Traylor said that while the dozen 18-wheeler deaths in 2021 might seem like a small number to some, she believes many, if not all, could have been avoided by having more police officers in Austin. “It goes back to, once again, just where we are at in our city,” she said. “In general, they’re trying to respond quicker to calls, but with that comes other drivers needing to pay better attention to their surroundings. If we had more officers, there’s a good chance this wouldn’t happen.”
Hoping for a safe end to 2021, the city ramped up an educational campaign in multiple languages around the holiday season featuring messages via digital media, social media, television, radio and print that encouraged Austin residents to drive responsibly.
As Christmas neared, the Almanza family finally received some form of closure after laying Juana and Kimberlye to rest. It took weeks for Kimberlye to be legally identified by the coroner’s office because her remains were so badly burned in the vehicle fire. Her family described the teenager as always smiling and especially caring toward her grandparents. Elisandro Almanza, who was joined by Juana’s mother, husband and eldest son inside the family home in North Austin, said the holidays were an especially painful time because the most cherished memories they have of Juana and Kimberlye are at family gatherings. Sitting in front of a living room memorial to her daughter and grandchild, Maria Almanza shared that Juana was the life of every holiday, making sure all of the meals were cooked and that the children had presents to open for Christmas.
The 37-year-old has three other children, ages 6, 9 and 18, whom her husband and the rest of the family now care for together. “We feel lost without her,” Maria Almanza said in Spanish. “She was always the one getting the family together. We feel empty. We just don’t know what to do.” As the patriarch of the family, Elisandro said he’s just trying to keep his family strong entering the new year, holding to the memories that flood back into his mind daily when he picks up his nephews from school.
“I try to do my best helping the family cope with this difficult situation,” he said. “I always have on my mind those beautiful memories we have from all of the family events. We all are a very close family. I will keep those memories alive, deep in my heart.”
December 20, 2021 – AUSTIN (KXAN) —While traffic fatalities continue to trend upward both locally and nationally, roadways undergoing improvements through Austin’s Vision Zero initiative are noting reductions in the number of severe crashes around the city. Data released by the Austin Transportation Department Monday reported a 17% reduction in severe crashes on high-injury roadways that have undergone recent enhancements. High-injury roadways are those areas with some of the largest concentrations of roadway crashes in the city.
The city has identified 13 roadways that account for some of the highest volume of crashes within Austin. Six of those 13 corridors identified by the city have recently received safety upgrades as part of the Vision Zero program:
North Lamar Boulevard (U.S. 183 to Braker Lane)
Cameron Road (E. St. Johns Avenue to Rundberg Lane)
Riverside Drive (Lakeshore Boulevard to Montopolis Drive)
South Pleasant Valley Road (Cesar Chavez Street to Oltorf Street)
William Cannon Drive (Menchaca Road to Elm Creek Drive)
Slaughter Lane (Menchaca Road to Interstate 35)
(Courtesy: Austin Transportation Department)
What safety improvements have been made?
While Austin has a wide network of local and arterial corridors throughout the city, Meyer said the majority of Austin’s most severe crashes happen on a relatively small set of roadways. These, comprising the HIR network, have been the sites of Vision Zero’s most concerted safety upgrade efforts.
Roadway improvements implemented include installing flashing yellow arrows or converting intersections to include protected left turn signals, to encourage speed reduction or designate time for turning traffic. Other changes made are added plastic road delineators, which can help guide and separate pedestrian and vehicle traffic through intersections.
Which roadways will be treated next?
Meanwhile, construction on three HIR corridors is currently in the works:
E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (Airport Boulevard to Johnny Morris Road)
Airport Boulevard (Manor Road to Springdale Road)
S. Congress Avenue (Ben White Boulevard to William Cannon Drive)
Meyer said all city transportation officials have completed analyses on these three roadways and begun street improvements. These changes include those made at the six other HIR corridors, as well as signal timing improvements. Future work is planned for Parmer Lane from Metric Boulevard to Dessau Road; Burnet Road from U.S. 183 to MoPac Expressway; North Lamar Boulevard from Koenig Lane to U.S. 183; and South 1st Street from Stassney Lane to Slaughter Lane.
“In 2022, we are going to be looking at a few other of the high-injury roadways and start to do analysis, and really dig into the crash types and patterns that we’re seeing on those roadways,” Meyer said, adding upgrades will likely begin in mid- to late-2022.
Why are severe crashes decreasing, while traffic fatalities are rising?
While Meyer noted these improvements are a sign the city is trending in the right direction, fatalities are still increasing at the local and national level. Vision Zero data released by the city reported that, within a five-year period, 350 people have died in traffic-related accidents on HIR corridors. As of Monday, more than 100 traffic-related fatalities have occurred on Austin roadways this year alone, up 30% from 2020. Following this latest data release, Meyer said it’s encouraging conversations at the city level on how to expand these changes throughout Austin’s road network, in an effort to reduce traffic fatalities. Still, he said traffic experts across the country have tried to theorize why these fatalities are increasing at high volumes nationally.
“There’s been a lot of speculation that a lot of that has to do with changes that are happening during the pandemic: less traffic overall is actually leading to more speeding and more opportunities for people to do dangerous behaviors like impaired driving or distracted driving,” he said. “This is a trend that we’re going to continue to monitor and try to understand how those travel behaviors are changing and what we can do to address those.”
For nearly two decades, speeding has been the cause of more than a third of all traffic fatalities in the United States. Then came the pandemic, causing the world to shut down and fatal vehicle crashes … to rise? That’s right. Despite a significant national decline in vehicle miles traveled in 2020 due to Covid-19, traffic fatalities rose 24% while pedestrian fatality rates experienced their highest increase in 45 years.
Clearly, speeding endangers not only the life of the speeder, but all the other drivers on the road, not to mention bicyclists, joggers, pedestrians and anyone else using the road, sidewalk and other adjacent areas. Portland, Oregon offers a prime example of the current state of affairs recording its fourth consecutive year of increases in traffic fatalities. When reviewing these incidents, the city identified several contributing factors to these fatal crashes
58% of traffic fatalities occurred on roads where the speed limits exceed those recommended by state statutes.
44% occurred on roads with little or no traffic calming measures.
54% involved trucks or SUVs, both of which are proving to be extraordinarily dangerous to others on the road.
58% took place at night, often in areas with poor lighting.
What can communities do to prevent this kind of mayhem on our roads? While there is no single solution, more than 40 communities have committed to Vision Zero, a multidisciplinary approach to eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
Vision Zero represents a significant departure from the status quo in recognizing that since people inevitably will make driving mistakes, road systems and policies must be designed to ensure that such mistakes do not lead to severe injuries or fatalities. To achieve that, traffic planners and engineers policymakers and public health professionals must work together to improve the roadway environment, traffic policies and other related systems to lessen the severity of vehicle crashes.
For Vision Zero communities, this has translated into several concrete steps designed to prioritize safety and access, beginning with speed management through reduced speed limits, enhanced law enforcement and regular use of speed cameras.
In New York City, former Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Michael Replogle reports, “On Queens Boulevard, a street once dubbed the “Boulevard of Death,” 18 pedestrians were once killed in a single year. Under Vision Zero, we made transformative changes including lowering the speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph. Queens Boulevard has now gone more than three years without a cyclist or pedestrian fatality [and] speed cameras have reduced speeding by up to 60% on streets in front of schools.”
Traffic calming measures employed in other Vision Zero communities have ranged from installing speed bumps, roundabouts, medians and central turn lanes to decreasing the number of vehicle travel lanes and narrowing existing lanes. These measures all have helped reduce the speed and volume of vehicle traffic, while giving pedestrians and bike traffic sufficient room to travel safely.
Other Safety Challenges
Controlling speed, however, is only part of the problem. As Portland demonstrates, a significant number of traffic fatalities are caused by poor highway lighting. That dovetails with a World Health Organization study which shows that a third of all pedestrian casualties had difficulty seeing the vehicle that struck them, while 40% of drivers had difficulty seeing the pedestrian. Similarly, a recent Japanese report found there was a 43% reduction in night-time accidents following installation of bright, broad-spectrum lighting.
In addition to improved highway lighting, pedestrian safety can be impacted by installing a notification system that alerts drivers when a pedestrian is in or about to enter a crosswalk. Pedestrian fatalities can also be lowered through installation of inroad LEDs for crosswalks, dynamic sensing devices that extend crossing times and high-quality mid-block crossing signals. Plus, raised crosswalks—speed humps placed where pedestrians are known to cross the road—can be employed to slow vehicle movement and reduce the number of accidents involving pedestrians.
Some Vision Zero communities are even moving to limit or completely ban large trucks in favor of smaller vehicles with more maneuverable cab-over designs in which the driver sits over the wheel axle instead of behind the nose of the truck. This comes in the wake of a new report by the Volpe Center that shows that garbage trucks, fire trucks and commercial freights trucks are responsible for nearly 8% of pedestrian fatalities and more than 10% of bicycle fatalities, although they comprise only 4% of vehicles on the road.
Bottom line, there is no single way to achieve Vision Zero. In Santa Monica, California installation of a new, two-way protected bikeway created a safe, calm route from the downtown rail station to the California Incline bike path, connecting 22 uninterrupted miles of beach/bike path. In Tempe, Arizona, the city’s first major roundabout, accommodating both traditional roadway users and a newly constructed Tempe streetcar, replaced an existing signalized intersection, helping the city to take a major step toward achieving its Vision Zero goals.
While there may be numerous ways to implement a Vision Zero initiative, the bigger issue may be obtaining the community consensus to make it happen. Currently, too many U.S. communities regard traffic fatalities as a regrettable, but inevitable side effect of modern life. That complacency often makes it difficult for community leaders to give Vision Zero goals the priority they deserve.
Despite such impediments, it is essential for communities to recognize the toll that traffic fatalities extract beyond personal loss. Deep community impacts range from personal economic costs to destruction of property to significant taxpayer expense for emergency response and long-term health care costs, must also be considered. In short, communities must move beyond immediate concerns over costs and congestion to adopt a broader, more all-encompassing vision of what they can truly become by adopting a comprehensive Vision Zero policy.
by Wes Guckert, PTP, president and CEO of The Traffic Group, a traffic engineering and transportation planning firm serving clients nationally and internationally.
Jan 17, 2023 — HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — A man will serve seven years in prison following his involvement in a fatal hit-and-run in Buda back in October 2020. Jeffrey Conzemius pled guilty to an accident involving death charge on Oct. 18. Police arrested Conzemius in October 2020 for the fatal crash that killed 67-year-old Viola Garcez in the 15300 block of Interstate 35 in Buda.
Jan 17, 2023 – AUSTIN (KXAN) — A man has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to his involvement in a 2019 crash that resulted in a woman dying. Michael Garcia pled guilty to an accident involving death charge on Aug. 10, per Travis County online records. Police told KXAN in 2019 Garcia was accused of 
DETROIT (AP) — Traffic crashes in the U.S. cost society $340 billion in one year, or just over $1,000 for each of the country’s 328 million people, according to a study by safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it studied crashes in calendar year 2019 that killed an estimated 36,500 people, injured 4.5 million and damaged 23 million vehicles.
August 25, 2022 – ROUTE50 – The number of road deaths in the United States continues to climb, with
Tears poured down Melissa Traylor’s cheeks as she sat down with the American-Statesman in late November for her first media interview since her husband, Austin police officer Andy Traylor, died in a wreck July 31. Early that morning, she learned her husband was brain dead after crashing into an 18-wheeler while responding to a shooting call in East Austin. “They said he was in critical condition,” remembered Traylor, now a widowed mother of five young children. The knock on the door had startled her as she slept beside her two young sons. “They said time was of the essence and I needed to get to the hospital. It was the longest 45-minute drive of my life.”
