Page 39 - GCN, March and April 2017

How state troopers are predicting crashes
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Highway patrols are tapping into big data to predict where serious or fatal traffic accidents are likely to occur so they can try to prevent them
BY JENNI BERGAL
s Tennessee Highway Pa- trol Sgt. Anthony Griffin patrolled an area near Murfreesboro one morn- ing in January 2014, he
gave a young woman a ticket for driving her Geo Prizm without wearing a seat belt.
About four hours later, Griffin was dispatched to help out at the scene of a major accident a few miles away. A car had veered off the road, sailed over a bridge, struck a utility pole and landed in a frozen pond. When Griffin went to question the driver, who appeared unin- jured, he was shocked to find it was the woman he had ticketed earlier.
She told him she had been wearing her seat belt only because he had given her a ticket. She believed it saved her life.
And if it hadn’t been for the new crash prediction software his agency was us- ing, Griffin said he wouldn’t have been in that spot to issue her the ticket.
“I’m in my 21st year of law enforce- ment, and I’ve never come across any- thing where I could see the fruit of my work in this fashion,” said Griffin, who is now a lieutenant. “It was amazing.”
As more and more states use big data for everything from catching fraudsters to reducing health care costs, some highway patrols are tapping it to predict where serious or fatal traffic accidents
are likely to take place so they can try to prevent them.
“This has a tremendous potential to help save lives by pinpointing where the crashes occur and digging deep into the data and using that to make decisions,” said Kara Macek, spokeswoman for the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents highway safety offices.
Tennessee has been a leader in the use of predictive crash software, and other states are following in its footsteps.
“We’re always looking for ways to reduce our fatalities and get the most bang for our buck,” said Col. Tracy Trott, commander of the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
The Tennessee program, launched statewide in late 2013, cost $263,000 to set up and was funded by federal grants through what was then called the Gov- ernor’s Highway Safety Office. Staffing and maintenance run about $125,000 a year.
The program’s software merges every crash report in the state with weather conditions, information about special events and traffic enforcement citations. It produces a map that shows the likeli- hood of a serious crash or fatality within six-by-seven-mile areas in four-hour in- crements every day.
Troopers can check the map in their cars and patrol targeted areas when they have the time. Supervisors also use the
data to put together enforcement plans for the month, including where to set up safety belt and sobriety checkpoints.
Officials say having a police car sit- ting in the median or on the shoulder can be a deterrent to speeding and reck- less driving. At the very least, a trooper would be nearby if there’s a crash.
Patrick Dolan, manager of the Statis- tics Office at the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, said his agency’s average response time to crashes dropped nearly 33 percent from 2012 to 2016 — from 37 minutes to 25.
Traffic fatalities in Tennessee fell 3 percent from 2013 to 2015 (from 995 to 962), compared to a 7 percent increase nationally. Federal officials say more people were on the road, the economy improved, and gas prices dropped.
Last year, traffic fatalities in Tennessee spiked to 1,042, an 8 percent increase that mirrored the national increase dur- ing the first nine months of 2016, the most recent figure available. Tennes- see officials say it’s too early to know whether they need to rework the predic- tive model or if the spike is related to other factors, such as more traffic on the roads.
Trott said he thinks the predictive software has helped with response times and enforcement efforts by putting troopers in the right place at the right time.
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