Transportation Safety

Overview

Transportation Safety Regional Existing Conditions

The State of California, SCAG, and local governments are committed to ensuring transportation safety for all people in our region. Each year, metropolitan planning organizations such as SCAG work with the state to assess fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads and develop annual safety targets to comply with federal requirements.

SOCAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY RESOURCE HUB 

To support local jurisdictions in their efforts to advance transportation safety and help the region achieve its annual safety targets, SCAG developed the SoCal Transportation Safety Resource Hub, a centralized source of on SCAG’s transportation safety programs, data, reports, and resources, featuring:

  • A summary of regional transportation safety goals and targets
  • An overview of SCAG’s transportation safety existing conditions
  • An interactive map of SCAG’s Regional High Injury Network (HIN) along with downloadable data, and resources to support local jurisdictions to create their own HIN
  • Opportunities to get involved through SCAG’s current safety efforts
  • Data, tools, funding, and other resources from SCAG and other organizations

TRANSPORTATION SAFETY REGIONAL EXISTING CONDITIONS 

On average, each year in Southern California, 1,450 people are killed, 5,500 are seriously injured, and 124,000 are injured in traffic collisions. These statistics come from the Transportation Safety Regional Existing Conditions Report (2021) which reviews the region’s most recent roadway collision data, patterns, and trends to inform the development of regional safety targets and to serve as a reference when considering future planned improvements and actions.  

A high-level summary of the report is available on the Existing Conditions page of the SoCal Transportation Safety Resource Hub. Fact sheets featuring key safety statistics drawn from the 2021 Transportation Safety Regional Existing Conditions Report are available for each of the six SCAG counties:

Imperial County
Los Angeles County
Orange County
Riverside County
San Bernardino County
Ventura County

Further analysis and strategies regarding transportation safety are available in the Connect SoCal Transportation Safety and Security Technical Report.  

SAFETY TARGETS

Every February, SCAG establishes regional traffic safety targets for the five performance measures presented in the accompanying table. These regional targets are updated annually with the objective of evaluating progress being made toward safer roadways in the SCAG region. While the annually updated targets are based on observed regional safety data, trends analysis, and modeled performance assumptions, SCAG continues to endorse the broader transportation system safety goal encompassed by the Zero Deaths vision, which acknowledges that even one traffic-related fatality is unacceptable.

Achieving the Zero Deaths vision requires the implementation of a Safe System approach, which is based on the principle that humans make mistakes and have limited ability to tolerate crash impacts. The Safe System approach is based on the anticipation of human error and may be implemented through roadway design features and traffic management strategies to minimize opportunities for human error and to ameliorate the impact of collisions that do occur to reduce the risk of fatalities or serious injuries.

SCAG’s 2023 targets are as follows:

Performance Measure

SCAG 2024 Target*

Number of Fatalities:

1,861.4

Rate of Fatalities per 100 million Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT):

1.26

Number of Serious Injuries:

7,460.8

Rate of Serious Injuries per 100 million VMT:

5.42

Total Number of Non–motorized Fatalities and Serious Injuries:

2,368.2

2024 SCAG Regional Safety Targets (adopted February 1, 2024)
*Targets are based on a five-year rolling average.

REGIONAL HIGH INJURY NETWORK

High injury networks (HINs) are one of many strategies for local agencies to begin addressing traffic fatalities and serious injuries. HINs identify stretches of roadways where the highest concentrations of collisions resulting in fatal or serious injuries occur on the transportation network. 

SCAG’s Regional High Injury Network is a network of designated corridor-level segments where the highest concentrations of serious and fatal collisions occur over the course of the most recent five years of available collision data at the time of publishing (2015 – 2019). SCAG’s Regional HIN shows that 65 percent of all fatal and serious injuries occurred on just 5.5 percent of the regional transportation network. For more information about the development of SCAG’s Regional HIN, view the Methodology and Analysis document. 

Local jurisdictions in California may be even more interested in developing their own High Injury Network due to the adoption of Assembly Bill 43 (AB43), which will permit agencies with designated safety corridors (e.g., High Injury Networks) to lower speeds on those roads. The High Injury Network page of the SoCal Transportation Safety Resource Hub features several resources: 

  • A description of what a High Injury Network is and why they matter 
  • Recommendations and a checklist for developing HINs 
  • Webinars on the technical components of collision data and HINs 
  • Examples of locally adopted HINs 

To learn more about where collisions are occurring throughout Southern California, visit the High Injury Network page of the SoCal Transportation Safety Resource Hub.

GET INVOLVED

Safe and Active Streets Working Group

SCAG offers support to local partners across the region as they work to eliminate traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. Through the Safe and Active Streets Working Group, SCAG convenes local jurisdiction staff, government agencies, community-based organizations, academic researchers, and other leaders of transportation safety and active transportation stakeholders, to share best practices related to transportation safety, planning, and programming and share information on SCAG initiatives and funding programs. Working group meetings occur on a quarterly basis and are open to the public. More information regarding specific meetings and other regional planning working groups can be reviewed online here

Go Human

SCAG supports local jurisdictions and community-based organizations through its traffic safety and community engagement program, Go Human. SCAG Go Human aims to reduce crashes, improve safety for people walking and biking, and raise awareness of the importance of traffic safety.

More information on the Safety Campaign, trainings and webinars, and other safety resources for your jurisdictions is available here

Contact

Anita Au 
au@scag.ca.gov