COM 0042.010 2004-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Recommendations to the Hawaii County Mayor Hawaii County Council, Big Island Legislators and Hawaii State Governor To Reduce Motor Vehicle Related Fatalities in Hawaii County- June 2004 The following recommendations have been endorsed by the Motor Vehicle Crash Reduction Group. (See Appendix I for names and organizations) This group has been meeting for the past year to analyze the complex factors behind the disproportionately high motor vehicle related death rate in Hawaii County. We recommend that: A. Hawaii County and Hawaii State identify Hawaii County Motor Vehicle Related (MVR) fatalities and injuries as a priority issue requiring an interdisciplinary approach and additional resources. B. Hawaii County and Hawaii State collaborate to support improvement of data collection, assessment, and dissemination to relevant traffic safety interest groups to help answer the questions, "why?" and "what should be done to improve?" 1. Track the annual number of Hawaii County Motor Vehicle Related fatalities and injuries; also track deaths among residents and non-residents, and deaths on public roads and private roads. 2. Target impaired driving because alcohol is the probable cause of approximately 50% of Motor Vehicle Related fatalities in Hawaii County, and because there is evidence that interventions to reduce impaired driving are effective in reducing MVR fatalities. For measuring the effect of the impaired driving intervention, define two benchmarks and set a goal of a 10% reduction in both benchmarks bV the end of year 2007. (i) Benchmark #1 The Hawaii County Five-Year Alcohol-Related, Fatal Crash Rate (ii) Benchmark #2 The Hawaii County Five-Year Proportion of Fatal Crashes that are Alcohol-Related 3. Develop a county specific INTER-AGENCY working group whose goal is to add value to the assessment of "hot spots" already currently undertaken by State Department of Transportation and County Department of Public Works. ("Hot spots' are clusters of fatalities and/or injury causing crashes at roughly the same location. For examples, see Appendix III Explanations - B 3.) The goal is to develop a working process, or system, for sharing "hot-spot" information with other agencies, and putting interventions in place so that potential problems can be identified early, rather than after-the- fact, when the problems become more obvious. Obstacles to the process should be identified and solutions proposed, such as: (i) Assuring the protection from liability, which is mandated by federal law. (ii) Investigate academic partners with expertise in developing integrated information systems for real-time tracking of fatalities and crashes. C. Hawaii County implements the following evidence-based interventions: 1. Develop a county task force as recommended by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reduce drinking and driving. Ideally locate this task force in an existin county lead agency and work with MADD to identify champions. This task force would develop a visible partnership with the NHTSA campaign, "You Drink, You Drive, You Lose," as welt as follow the model of other mainland counties who have successful local DUI task forces. 2. Support effective staffing of the Hawaii County Drug Recognition Evaluation (DRE) Program. 3. Support graduated licenses. 4. Support Community Roads Safety Watch Efforts -Solutions 2000 (Tool countywide) to report reckless Driving to the non-emergency police line (Currently 935-3311). 5. On-going support of Solutions 2000 efforts to reduce speeding in Hawaii County. D. Encourage an integrated planning and design process for improvement in roads, Emergency Medical Services and public transportation. Motor Vehicle Related Crash Fatality Reduction Group - 2004 4