A recent story in my local news was regarding changes to traffic patterns made to the 44th most dangerous intersection in OH. A 2018 traffic study showed there had been 114 crashes at the intersection over the previous four (4) years; 40% of those resulted in an injury. The state tried just about every administrative control known to man to reduce the number of accidents and their severity.
Signs, and I mean BIG signs, warning of the dangerous intersection.
Flashing caution lights on approaching the intersection when the lights were turning yellow and red.
Reduced speed limit in the approach to and in the area of this intersection.
All of these attempts using administrative controls had minimal impact on reducing accidents. The state did see a slight decrease in severity; however, the study could not correlate the reduction in severity to any of the administrative controls.
So the state spent nearly $3M to redesign this intersection with a Restricted Crossing U-Turn (RCUT).
And, of course, the news reporters could not find anyone who liked the change…
Local 12 spoke with more than a dozen people at the gas station next to this intersection to see what they thought about the change. Not surprisingly, None of them liked it.
Their responses ranged from “it’s too complicated and confusing” to “it’s more dangerous than before.“
What I found most interesting is the response… “its more dangerous than before“.
Sounds like a broken record to most safety professionals. Let’s be honest: very few people like change, and when it comes to making changes in the name of “safety,” people tend to especially not like those changes. We are not privy to the interviews, but I can almost bet we can repeat many phrases stated to the reporter(s).
However, the data strongly suggests redesigning this intersection improved safety. The intersection has seen a 34% drop in crashes from 2019 – 2020; that’s also the fewest number of crashes in a decade.
But perception is a powerful force, and convincing those who do not like the change that the change has REDUCED accidents (not made it “more dangerous”) will be very difficult to overcome. Some drivers who have used that intersection without an accident since they were of driving age will call the change a “waste of time and $”; others will blame other drivers for the accidents, etc. Hence, one of the main reasons why the Administrative Controls failed to CHANGE the behaviors of the drivers; most think those controls were for “those other bad drivers.”
Just another example of how ENGINEERING controls will trump ADMINISTRATIVE controls every time!