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AUSTIN (CBSDFW.COM) — While there were fewer people on the roadways and fewer traffic crashes throughout the year, 2020 saw a spike in the number of fatalities overall and deaths of Texans from not wearing seat belts.

Last year, the simple act of buckling up saved many Texans from death or serious injury in crashes. Unfortunately, in 2020 there was a 16% increase in deaths of unbuckled motorists. There were 1,073 fatalities in 2020 and 926 fatalities in 2019 due to people not wearing seat belts.

Putting on a seat belt is quick and reduces the risk of dying by up to 45% for people in the front seat of passenger cars and up to 60% for people in pickup trucks.“Wearing a seat belt is the most important step we can take to protect ourselves from serious injury or even death in a traffic crash. Instead of putting yourself and others in danger, remember: buckle up day and night, every rider, every ride,” Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Executive Director James Bass.

Research shows pickup drivers and passengers continue to lag in seat belt use. Close to half of all pickup drivers killed in crashes last year in Texas were not wearing a seat belt. Additionally, people driving at night wear their seat belt less often, even though it’s a more dangerous time to drive. Last year, 59% of all crashes in which unbuckled drivers or passengers died occurred at night.

From May 24 to June 6, as the summer driving season starts and families head to Memorial Day celebrations, Texas officers and deputies will step up enforcement of the state’s seat belt and child car seat laws. Texas law requires everyone in a vehicle to be properly secured in the front or back seat or face fines and fees up to $200. Children younger than 8 years old must be restrained in a child safety seat or booster seat unless they are taller than 4 feet 9 inches. If a child isn’t secured, the driver faces fines of up to $250.

From 2002 to 2019, the Click It or Ticket initiative in Texas is estimated to have saved more than 6,000 lives, prevented more than 100,000 serious injuries, and resulted in $23.6 billion in economic savings, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

March 15, 2021 – AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) warned that pedestrian deaths continue to rise in the state.  Currently, they now account for 1 in 5 of all traffic fatalities. TxDOT’s news release said in 2019 alone, 5,975 traffic crashes involving pedestrians occurred in Texas, resulting in 669 deaths, a 5% increase in fatalities over the previous year. Another 1,317 people were seriously injured, said TxDOT’s news release.

Since 2015, TxDOT has spent $153 million in federal and state funding to upgrade sidewalks, curbs, and striping for pedestrian accessibility, safety, and mobility.  TxDOT said crash reports from law enforcement indicate the two leading causes for pedestrian fatalities are pedestrians failing to follow traffic safety laws and being struck when crossing streets and roadways. Motorists failing to yield the right of way, driving distracted, or driving too fast.

In March TxDOT said they will begin a socially distanced outreach campaign near intersections and high traffic areas in the state’s major cities. The purpose is to deliver messages where people most need to see them at street level. This “walking billboard” public education effort will use stark, attention-grabbing visuals reminding motorists and pedestrians that “pedestrians don’t come with airbags” and ” you can’t fix a pedestrian at a body shop.”

TxDOT’s pedestrian safety campaign is a key component of #EndTheStreakTX, a broader social media and word-of-mouth effort that encourages drivers to make safer choices while behind the wheel such as wearing a seat belt, driving the speed limit, never texting and driving, and never driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, said the agency.

Over the next several months, Austin drivers will start seeing posted signs alerting them to reduced speed limits on certain residential and urban core streets.  The reductions, aimed at improving traffic safety, were unanimously approved by the City Council earlier this month.

Data collected by the Vision Zero program showed that speeding is the leading cause of a quarter of deadly traffic crashes, making it one of the top four behaviors that contribute to most traffic deaths in Austin, along with failure to yield, distraction and intoxication. In 2018, 74 people died on Austin roads.

“If you drive more slowly, you are better equipped to respond to conditions, and the more people can pay attention to their driving the safer everybody will be,” said Council Member Leslie Pool, whose District 7 in North Austin includes high-traffic roads such as MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1), Interstate 35 and Parmer Lane. “As our city has grown, we are not really a small town anymore, and we’ve seen an uptick in vehicle accidents, collisions and conflicts, and that’s preventable.”

Traffic patterns and injuries during the coronavirus pandemic indicate that speeding remains an issue, even while average traffic volumes are down about 50% from early this year. Overall crashes are only down about 20% and Austin has seen roughly a 15% increase in serious injuries, according to the city’s Transportation Department.

“One takeaway from this is that people who continue to drive seem to be getting into serious car crashes more frequently, which is likely tied to many drivers choosing to go at faster speeds than normal,” Transportation Department spokeswoman Susanne Harm said.

The planned changes are based on a year-long engineering study of speed limits on city roadways conducted by the city’s traffic engineer. The changes will affect three kinds of roads:

· Neighborhood streets — mainly residential and typically about 36 feet wide or narrower — which will have posted speed limits of 25 mph. Some neighborhood streets wider than 36 feet also will have reduced posted speed limits.

· High-capacity urban core roads, which are bounded by U.S. 183, Texas 71, and MoPac Boulevard, will be posted at 35 mph or less, with a few exceptions. Such roads include portions of Lamar Boulevard in Central Austin, parts of Menchaca Road in South Austin or Springdale Road in East Austin.

· Downtown streets, including most streets within the area bounded by North Lamar Boulevard, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, I-35 and Lady Bird Lake will be posted at 25 mph, while Guadalupe and Lavaca streets, MLK, 15th and Cesar Chavez streets and Lamar will be posted at 30 mph.

Joel Meyer, a transportation planner with the Transportation Department, told the American-Statesman the majority of changes will be on neighborhood streets where the speed limit will change from 30 mph to 25 mph. However, he said a number of streets with higher speed limits will be reduced by 5 or 10 mph.

The city also will revamp some roadways by narrowing lane widths or reassigning portions of the street for biking or parking as a way to encourage slower driving. The city has published an interactive map that shows where speed limit changes will occur.

No other new resources or initiatives are going toward enforcing the speed limit reductions, Meyer said, but the department is encouraging police to give warnings rather than citations while people adjust to the new limits.

The project will also make speed limits on similar roads more consistent throughout the city, according to Harm.

“It will make it easy to know what the speed limit is,” she said. “That will help us lower the speed overall and help enforcement know if someone is speeding.”

City Council Member Ann Kitchen, whose District 5 includes West Gate Boulevard and Slaughter Lane, said slower commute times was not a concern when weighing this proposal. Most speed limits are being reduced by 10 mph or less, which she said only increases total trip time by a minute or two.

“Really that is a small price to pay for saving someone’s life,” she said.

Speed limit reductions on individual roads aren’t new, Kitchen said, but this is the first time the city has approached the problem with such a wide scope.

“We’ve had one-off changes over the years,” she said. “This is really a chance to really look at it in a comprehensive way.”

Kitchen expects more analysis going forward to find other streets deserving of speed limit reductions, starting with neighborhood streets between 36 and 40 feet wide, which will be looked at in the next year. She encouraged those with concerns about a street’s safety to reach out to the City Council.

January 31, 2020 (CBS Austin) – “It’s a crisis we have to solve,” said Jay Crossley, director of Vision Zero Texas.So far this year, 11 people have already died in crashes on Austin roads.  The average from 2007 to 2015 is just four deaths in January.

On January 19th, Jose Luis Velazquez and his girlfriend, Joanne Menchaca, were hit and killed by a driver on Hwy 71. Court documents show the driver who hit them is suspected of going over 100 miles per hour to make a flight at Austin’s airport.  “He would send us messages saying he loved us,” said Tracey Velazquez.

Days before that, 18-year-old Fabian Morales was killed in a racing crash on Bluff Springs Road.  The two crashes are among 11 that happened in the first month of 2020.

When Vision Zero started in 2016, traffic deaths in Austin started to reduce with 79 in 2016, 76 in 2017 and 74 in 2018. But numbers spiked in 2019 with 88 traffic deaths.

In September of 2019, the Austin City Council approved selected speed limited changes in an effort to make roads safer. The roads picked had a high number of crashes that led to significant injuries and fatalities. Parts of Airport Boulevard and Cameron Road were reduced by five miles per hour.

“If someone in front of you is driving at a safe speed, you’re forced to follow them at a safe speed,” said Crossley.

At next week’s city council meeting, Vision Zero is expected to present the newest fatal crash data as part of an effort to ask council for $400 million for their goal to reduce traffic deaths to zero by 2025.  CBS Austin asked Mayor Steve Adler in December of 2019 if he thought the city was allocating enough money to prevent traffic deaths. “We’re not putting adequate money against any of the most serious challenges in the city,” said Adler.

A transportation package expected to be on the November ballot is slated to be in the billions. Part of that package would also include an effort to try and get more cars off the road with improved rail service.

January 8, 2020 – The Austin Transportation Department recently installed technology at downtown intersections designed to make crossing safer for pedestrians.

The technology, called leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs), gives pedestrians five to seven seconds to cross an intersection before drivers receive a green light.  “Giving pedestrians a head start makes them more visible to drivers and reinforces a pedestrian’s right of way,” Austin Transportation Department Director Robert Spillar said. “LPIs provide enhanced safety for our most vulnerable neighbors who may be slower in crossing an intersection.”

Downtown represents less than 1 percent of Austin’s roads, yet represents more than 10 percent of accidents involving pedestrians and vehicles, according to Jen Duthie, Arterial Management Division manager.  Installing LPIs reduce the number of pedestrians hit by vehicles by up to 60 percent, according to a Transportation Research Board study.  Austin’s LPIs were installed within the area bordered by 15th Street, North Lamar Boulevard, West Cesar Chavez Street and Interstate 35. The technology is part of the city’s Vision Zero goal.

Vision Zero aims to reduce the city’s traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries to zero.  The LPIs also are part of a plan to reach half of Austin residents commuting by a transportation mode other than driving alone.