Information on SAFETEA-LU Section 1927

• Introduction
• The Corridors
• Origin of Section 1927
• Statutory Language
• Interstate Designation
• New Rural Interstates
• Travel Time Savings
• Travel Safety
• Construction Costs
• FAQs
• Procurement

Travel Safety:
Fatality Rate on Rural Highways in Selected States

Freeways are, in terms of fatalities per vehicle mile, considerably safer than other highways. Thus, one benefit to travelers from construction of freeways is a safety benefit. The safety advantage of freeways vs. other roads obviously does not justify improving every road to freeway standards because there are other actions that might be more cost effective if the goal is to reduce vehicle related fatalities (e.g., upgrading guardrail, improving shoulders, pavement treatments, driver training, etc.).

The table below provides a comparison between the fatality rates on rural interstates and other rural roads in the States that would be affected by a new freeway built in the 14th amendment highway corridor and the 3rd infantry division highway corridor.

* Vehicle related fatalities per hundred million vehicle miles in 2004

While it is true that there are a number of freeways in these States that are not Interstates, extracting such data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/) is not particularly easy. In addition the non-Interstate freeway mileage is, in some States, not extensive and thus the fatality rates may be statistically problematic. For both reasons, the above table uses "interstates" as a proxy for "freeways". In addition, each of these States operates expressways (divided highways without restricted access) that generally have fatality rates greater than freeways but less than non-divided highways. Both the analytical extraction and the statistical significance problems exist for these highways also and thus the expressway rates are not shown.

An important consideration in examining fatality rates is that they are not static. Three decades ago, the fatality rates were generally over twice what they are today (since about 2000 the fatality rates per vehicle mile traveled have declined at about the same rate as total travel miles have increased). It is reasonable to expect both that fatality rates will further decrease somewhat in the future as well as that the total travel miles will increase somewhat.