Pasco County’s traffic fatalities and serious injuries caused by crashes are heading in the wrong direction, Tina Russo, a planner for the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) said at a meeting last week.
She’s urging everyone to get involved in reducing the number of people who die, or who are seriously injured because of crashes.
She uses the term “crash” rather than “accident” because that keeps the emphasis on prevention, she said during the Pasco MPO’s Feb. 9 meeting.
Her comments came as she explained the organization’s recommended system performance measures for safety, which are required by federal law.
Russo and Johnny Coors, a transportation planner for the Pasco MPO staff, shared statistics, representing a five-year rolling average of fatalities and injuries resulting from crashes.
The Pasco County MPO is the lead transportation planning agency for the county and is made up of elected leaders from Pasco County, Zephyrhills, Dade City, New Port Richey and Port Richey.
Russo and Coors recommended targets for calendar year 2023 based on local data provided by the Florida Department of Transportation.
Performance measures are used to establish targets and objectives for management of Pasco’s transportation system and to evaluate progress made toward meeting those targets.
The performance measures include total fatalities and fatality rate; total serious injuries and serious injury rate; and total bicycle and pedestrian fatalities, as well as serious injuries.
“Zero is our goal,” Russo said.
But, she added, the goals submitted to federal authorities must be achievable.
The targets are set based on a five-year rolling average, said Russo, who is deeply involved in safety efforts.
Last year, the target was set to maintain the status quo. This year, it calls for a 10% reduction.
Russo said it takes coordinated efforts to bring about positive change.
“This crash data is not just a number on a piece of paper. These are stories of people’s lives that are affected forever by these numbers,” she said.
In 2021, Pasco had 105 fatalities.
“These numbers are calculated based on long-form crash reports that are done on all of our roadways done by law enforcement,” Russo said.
“We actually look at every one of those crash reports and delve into: How can we prevent these, or what can we do differently? The bad part is that we’re going in the wrong direction. We are going up, in fatalities,” she said.
On a positive note, serious injuries are declining, she said.
That’s a national trend, which appears to be a result of increased safety features in vehicles, she added.
She also told the MPO board that there’s no easy solution because Pasco’s traffic fatalities occur across the county, not in a few concentrated areas.
“There is no exact intersection, where we can really focus on, where most of our numbers are,” Russo said. She did note, however, that U.S. 19 continues to be a big part of the problem.
She told board members that there are behaviors that are causing people to be killed.
“Lane departures is one of our biggest ones. Most of those are people driving off the road and hitting a fixed object, with no seatbelt on,” she said.
“Speed is always a big one,” she said.
Aging drivers face a greater risk of mortality when involved in high-speed crashes, she said.
Road design is another factor.
“If it’s wide, people are going to drive faster,” Russo said.
Pasco County Commissioner Kathryn Starkey agreed that roadway design plays a critical role.
“We have to be careful when we’re building roads that we’re not building speedways,” she said.
For instance, Lake Blanche Drive offers motorists a straight shot, with no cross roads.
“People will drive the speed they feel safe. You can feel very safe going 75 mph down that road,” Starkey said.
She noted that complaints have been coming in about speeding on the road.
“We have drag racing going on, and kids zipping up and down on little motorcycles. We should have put a traffic circle in there, to calm it down,” Starkey said.
On the other hand, Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano said narrow roads can be dangerous — especially when they don’t have shoulders — because there’s no way to avoid a crash.
Russo noted: “An 11-foot lane with safety edges is different than an 11-foot lane with no shoulder at all.”
Resolving traffic safety issues takes a collaborative effort — involving traffic operations, project management, planning and public education, among other things, Russo said.
“We all have a role in this,” she said.
She also noted there may be one silver lining to getting stuck in traffic.
“Congestion, sometimes, is the best thing for safety,” Russo said. “The reason why you drive fast is because you can.”
Adopted targets for 2023
- Number of fatalities: 93.8
- Rate of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled: 1.9
- Number of serious injuries: 889.6
- Rate of serious injuries per 100 million miles traveled: 17.6
- Number of combined pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries: 105.5
Adopted targets for 2022
- Number of fatalities: 99.8
- Rate of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled: 2
- Number of serious injuries: 1,058.6
- Rate of serious injuries per 100 million miles traveled: 21.3
- Number of combined pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries: 125.2
Published February 15, 2023
