Regionalities

While U.S. Census figures show that about one out of five (21 percent) Americans live in rural areas, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has found that about six out of 10 (57 percent) highway deaths occur on roads that it considers rural.

"Whether you're a driver, policymaker or a road engineer, this is an eye opener," said Oberstar. "Crash data used to be stored in huge dusty stacks of paper in Washington, D.C. We've made sure the information is instantly available on millions of screens, and it is available in a dramatically visual and customized format. This is as important to better highway safety as the interstate map was to achieving national mobility."

The Safety Advisory Zones include 100 from rural areas. While 29 states have rural areas in the Top 100, the ten states with the most "hot zones" are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia (in alphabetical order). A searchable map showing all of the hot zones is available at www.saferoadmaps.org.

"Drivers often think of rural safety as an issue only for the least populous states," said Tom Horan, CERS Research Director. "But this analysis shows that drivers need to be extra alert in rural regions of the more populous states as well."

The SafeRoadMaps.org tool is being used in a variety of ways to educate the public about road fatalities. For instance, driver's education leaders have advocated use of the tool as a means to teach new drivers the importance of following the rules of the road. Drivers are exploring their most common routes and being educated about the need to take sensible precautions. Finally, road safety officials are using the tool to better pinpoint where policy, structural and traffic management adjustments are most needed.

"SafeRoadMaps is not about casting blame," said Lee Munnich, CERS Director. "This is about making sure drivers are informed and safe, and policymakers have a user friendly tool to guide their safety related decisions."

In addition to rural hot zones, SafeRoadMaps now also identifies urban hot zones. Eighteen states have urban areas in the Top 100. The 10 states with the most "hot zones" are Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. These urban zones are also viewable on www.saferoadmaps.org.

The Center for Excellence in Rural Safety provides citizen-centered research, training, and outreach to enhance rural safety and to meet the needs of rural transportation practitioners and policymakers. It operates as a joint venture of the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and Center for Transportation Studies.