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Abstract
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Introduction
The Appalachian Region of the United States (the Region) is a unique environment with specific ecological, roadway, and cultural elements. The Region comprises counties in 13 states, including parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and the entirety of West Virginia. Appalachia is characterized by expansive rural regions, mountainous and curved terrain, and dense forests exposed to extreme weather elements. Drivers in Appalachia must contend with these environmental concerns as well as a number of cultural and health factors that can create unique traffic safety problems within the Region. Considering these traffic safety determinants in the context of Appalachia’s 13-state spread requires a diverse set of explanatory variables and countermeasures.
Project Description and Methodology
On behalf of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), the University of North Carolina (UNC) Highway Safety Research Center conducted an extensive investigation of traffic safety in Appalachia. This investigation consisted of multiple steps, specifically the following:
1. A comprehensive literature synthesis to describe traffic safety culture and how it relates to traffic safety in Appalachia and the culture of health within the Region.
2. A thorough analysis of Appalachian traffic fatalities. Crash fatality data was compared across Appalachian subregions and between the Appalachian and non-Appalachian United States to identify and describe specific traffic safety concerns within the Region.
3. A deeper investigation into fatal crash data to identify concerns related to drugged driving in the Region.
4. A case study of one Appalachian state—North Carolina—to verify findings from the broader fatal crash analysis.
5. Finally, an evaluation of the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS) as a potential intervention measure for treating traffic safety problems in the Region.
Synthesis of Traffic Safety and Health Research
To characterize the traffic safety culture in Appalachia, the research team scanned hundreds of journal articles, government reports, conference proceedings, and other research documents to find any studies of Appalachian traffic safety. Specifically, the research team sought to answer the following questions:
• What are the key characteristics of Appalachia that should be considered in a traffic safety analysis?
• What are common traffic safety problems throughout Appalachia?
• What potential explanations are there for these traffic safety problems?
• What is traffic safety culture, and what are its determinants?
• What is a culture of health, and how does it relate to traffic safety culture?
• What countermeasures and post-crash factors affect the outcome of traffic safety incidents in Appalachia?
• What are the research gaps that need to be filled?
After the completion of this literature synthesis, the research team proposed the following definition of traffic safety culture in Appalachia:
Traffic safety culture in Appalachia is the collective force of social norms, behaviors, and values that determine the average person’s posture toward engaging or not engaging in road-use behaviors that can influence their safe or unsafe use of the unique roadway environments that characterize the Region.
The above definition is necessarily ambiguous due to the lack of available research on the specific traffic safety needs and characteristics in Appalachia. Appalachian concerns are regularly excluded from state Strategic Highway Safety Plans, and the limited evaluations of crash data tend to focus on seatbelt usage or broad projections of the benefits of the Appalachian Development Highway System. Simply put, the definition of traffic safety culture in Appalachia is limited because traffic safety research in Appalachia is limited.
However, in completing this research project, the research team has identified several important questions that may help future research efforts sharpen the definition of traffic safety culture in the Region and inform future projects, including the following:
• How does roadway geometry (specifically curvature) affect the roadway departures identified by all states as a key focus area?
• How does the isolation of Appalachian roadways interplay with roadway lighting, access to emergency medical services, and access to definitive medical treatment affect crash outcomes in Appalachia?
• How dangerous are rural roads in Appalachia?
• What is the existing traffic safety culture in Appalachia?
• What poor driving behaviors are perpetuated by the existing traffic safety culture in Appalachia?
• What other cultural aspects of Appalachia affect safety in the Region?
While this project has answered many of these questions to a limited extent, answering each more fully will provide a better understanding of the culture that informs traffic safety in the Region. |