Highway warnings about traffic deaths may increase crashes, study finds

Crash data from Texas between 2010-2017 suggests the signs are counterproductive.

Read the whole story

 

[Dogs in a Pile]

They should be turned off at all times unless warning of an incident or highway closure ahead. If they don't have important information to present then STFU.

 

[Cakesauce]

Fatal crashes by population

1. TX
2. CA
3. FL

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... s-by-state

 

[Oldmanalex]

Thinking about it, on our local interstate, where you can clearly see where people went off the road in snowy weather, the tire tracks off the road are almost always on long straight stretches, and almost never on bends. So, due to a failure to understand Newton's Laws of Motion, I would have to conclude that not all of our drivers are rocket scientists either.

 

[Old Bitsmasher]

Assuming that the correlation with message content is valid, I can think of a possible causal factor:

If I am driving and see a message that says (in effect) "Have a nice day," I can dismiss it quickly and return my attention to the road.

If I see a message like "Right Lane Closed 2 Miles Ahead," I can process that within the context of my driving; my attention and short-term memory are still focused on the road.

If I see a message like "X Hundred People Died on This Road Last Year," I just got a stimulus to think about something else entirely. Almost as bad as a phone call.

 

[Meldreth]

In Nashville, the signs were supposed to inform about accidents and construction work.
But the highway department couldn't keep their mouths shut. There was always something on the signs, often distracting drivers with childish rhymes about "driving distracted".
It was The Little By Who Cried Wolf scenario. Eventually I just kept my eyes on the road and ignored the signs which, of course, is the safe thing to do.

 

[Boopy Boopy]

This is Texas so the policy may have been created to increase deaths. Perhaps based on electoral districts? They like things big in Texas, including deadly mismanagement of public health and services. As for the proposals about how the effect works psychologically: rather than just anxiety, how about "Oh so people are driving crazy eh? I'm going to KILL YOU first, I'm a wolf among sheep" etc [guns engine defiantly, causes death of self or others moments later]

like chained-together combos in a macabre video game, the increased rate of crashes per hour remained elevated along stretches that had multiple electronic signs; otherwise the effect diminished to background 4 to 6 miles (6-10 km) downstream of an electronic sign.

At least the effect wasn't increasing with each successive sign, that's what I was afraid the macabre chain combo metaphor was going to mean. It only remained elevated rather than becoming more and more elevated.

 

[Antron Argaiv]

As a Texan, I'd speculate that one factor they don't seem have considered is the actual location of the signs themselves. Most of the "Eleventy billion Texans have died this year" messages are displayed on electronic signs placed near multiple on and off ramps on the busiest sections of the busiest highways.

You'll be offered a changing, roadside message to read right when you should be paying the most attention to what is going on around you.

Well, they did consider that; the bit where they note the effect is more pronounced at more difficult highway locations.

And the fact that crashes go up for the one week a month where the message is about road deaths says it’s not just general distraction from yet another sign.

They put those LED signs up over the Turnpike in Massachusetts as well. They were *supposed* to be for traffic advisories, but instead, they're constantly displaying information that's not immediately relevant (how to get EZpass transponders, "use your blinker", "don't drive drunk", etc). I've always objected to these messages, because reading them takes your mind off (however temporarily) driving at 65 in heavy traffic...just in case it's a warning about something you're going to need to do something about. Even worse are the trailer signs on the side of the road, because it usually takes a couple of screens to get the whole message (meaning you're looking at them longer).

Nice to see some confirmation that they should only be used for urgent messages that relate to traffic or safety.

 

[pete.d]

Given the use of Texas for the data source, this seems like a foregone conclusion.
About the only place worse would have been Florida.

Wow, do you pick any negative impacting topic and point at areas of the country you dislike or even worse what the internet tells you to dislike? Bad distracted drivers are everywhere.

I can't speak to the intent of the previous poster. But, Texas is definitely on the far end of the "bad driver" spectrum.

As already noted, they rank at as the highest or near-highest highway fatality rate (depending on exactly which stats you're looking at).

Personally, I've driven in almost all of the 48 contiguous states, and my own subjective observation is that Texas has by far the most aggressive, least-law-abiding, most dangerous drivers. Speeding far in excess of posted limits (15 mph or more), extreme tailgating, abrupt and/or illegal lane-changes (often traveling across three or more lanes in a single abrupt maneuver), and a host of other bad practices seem to be a way of life for Texas drivers.

Naturally, this doesn't not apply to 100% of them. But it does apply to a shockingly high percentage, a large majority.

 

[Fearknot]

As a person who's taught someone else how to drive, I also find that constantly pointing out things to pay attention to makes the learner drive worse.

I was thinking this too, that giving the drivers long-ish (for road signs) bits of text to read may just be distracting them. Billboards can cause an increase in crashes too and these are basically billboards.

These billboards always have messages on them though. The accident rate only goes up when the signs talk about death though.

They should try displaying some feel-good messages rather than warnings, and see whether that leads to a reduction of the standard number of accidents.

 

[Navalia Vigilate]

Given the use of Texas for the data source, this seems like a foregone conclusion.
About the only place worse would have been Florida.

Wow, do you pick any negative impacting topic and point at areas of the country you dislike or even worse what the internet tells you to dislike? Bad distracted drivers are everywhere.

A co-worker and I occasionally traveled to Texas for a client. His quote after I said I hated coming to Texas was, "I love Texas! It's the only place I can go and suddenly feel like I have an IQ of 3,000!"

Texas like many southern and southwestern states have purposely degraded their educational systems and it shows in their K-12 system as well as the state colleges. While there is humor in my comment, there is truth as well.

 

[el_oscuro]

Fatal crashes by population

1. TX
2. CA
3. FL

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state ... s-by-state

From the same website, sorted by deaths per 100 million miles:

1. SC
2. MS
3. LA

 

[Fearknot]

the increased rate of crashes per hour remained elevated along stretches that had multiple electronic signs

The very fact that they use "crashes per hour" as metric gives one pause

 

[PEBKAC69]

Now let's see a similar study for speed traps. Maybe with imperical evidence we can finally deprecate this form of taxation.

 

[PEBKAC69]

Texas has by far the most aggressive, least-law-abiding, most dangerous drivers. Speeding far in excess of posted limits (15 mph or more), extreme tailgating, abrupt and/or illegal lane-changes (often traveling across three or more lanes in a single abrupt maneuver), and a host of other bad practices seem to be a way of life for Texas drivers.

Naturally, this doesn't not apply to 100% of them. But it does apply to a shockingly high percentage, a large majority.

Texas roads are conducive to high speeds. 85 in a 70, with flow of traffic, really isn't that crazy.

But it sounds like someone-who-shall-not-be-named felt it was appropriate to go 75 in the left lane when others want to go faster. That someone fails to understand why others may subsequently end up tailgating them; or squeezing into small gaps to get by.

Don't antagonize other motorists by driving too slow, or YOU are the problem, creating dangerous traffic patterns.

 

[JerryLove]

Around here it's Silver Alerts... and I have to wonder if there's ever been a successful found person from putting those on the street signs.

I was travelling down I4 once, and as I moved from county to county, the same silver alert had slightly different details (at one point it was an Accord, another a Civic, another a Camry... all with almost identical license numbers).

But even if the sign is 100% accurate, how does this work? Can most people memorize license plates just driving under a sign? Do we all pull over and write it down? Then how do we check? Will reading the plates not cause driving issues? What about checking my notes to see if it's a match.

Not that I think anyone does all that; but like... how did the people who came up with the idea imagine it would work?

 

[skurtov]

This feels like we're really grasping at straws. How does one even quantify such a minor thing and find statistically significant data? Are we really going to say, amongst the myriad of factors - including more drivers, larger vehicles, poorer road conditions, more traffic, less driver attentiveness; that a road sign makes people stress enough to have an accident?

 

[Fate's Progenitor]

Texas has by far the most aggressive, least-law-abiding, most dangerous drivers. Speeding far in excess of posted limits (15 mph or more), extreme tailgating, abrupt and/or illegal lane-changes (often traveling across three or more lanes in a single abrupt maneuver), and a host of other bad practices seem to be a way of life for Texas drivers.

Naturally, this doesn't not apply to 100% of them. But it does apply to a shockingly high percentage, a large majority.

Texas roads are conducive to high speeds. 85 in a 70, with flow of traffic, really isn't that crazy.

Well, seeing as this is actually ILLEGAL, it is kind of crazy. Maybe Texas should just remove all speed limits and implement a set of Autobahn-style driving restrictions that are enforced.

Short of that, if a vehicle is passing in the left lane at, say, 5 MPH above the limit, but Mr. Rolling Coal rides up behind them going 15 MPH above the limit, doesn't make it legal or safe.

 

[Veritas super omens]

You can say it all by listing of some of the governors of Texas.

Greg Abbott twice!
George W Bush
Rick Perry 3 times!

 

[Zaragon]

Most Southern states are "slower traffic keep right". I once spoke with a State Trooper where I was living at the time about this. I asked him "Do I really need to move out of the left lane if I'm traveling at the speed limit and someone comes up behind me traveling faster than I am?"

His response:
1) You have no guarantee your speedometer is accurate (you may actually be driving under the limit).
2) You have no guarantee his speedometer is accurate (he may not be aware he's speeding).
3) It's not your job to enforce the speed limit, it's ours.

He ended with "Legally, if someone in your lane is overtaking you, you are required to move right, unless you are traveling faster than the traffic in that lane. You could be ticketed for failure to do so."

As near as I can tell, the big difference between Northern states and Southern ones is whether or not you can sit in the left lane on a deserted highway (legal in the South, "slower traffic keep right"; illegal in the North, "keep right except to pass"). You're legally required to move right when someone is overtaking you in both places, unless you are currently passing slower traffic.

 

[watermeloncup]

Texas has by far the most aggressive, least-law-abiding, most dangerous drivers. Speeding far in excess of posted limits (15 mph or more), extreme tailgating, abrupt and/or illegal lane-changes (often traveling across three or more lanes in a single abrupt maneuver), and a host of other bad practices seem to be a way of life for Texas drivers.

Naturally, this doesn't not apply to 100% of them. But it does apply to a shockingly high percentage, a large majority.

Texas roads are conducive to high speeds. 85 in a 70, with flow of traffic, really isn't that crazy.

Well, seeing as this is actually ILLEGAL, it is kind of crazy. Maybe Texas should just remove all speed limits and implement a set of Autobahn-style driving restrictions that are enforced.

Short of that, if a vehicle is passing in the left lane at, say, 5 MPH above the limit, but Mr. Rolling Coal rides up behind them going 15 MPH above the limit, doesn't make it legal or safe.

There is a duty for someone driving in the left lane to pass with a reasonable speed differential, and to get over as soon as safe even if traveling above the speed limit. But too often people in the left lane tailgate even when person in front is traveling 5+ mph faster than the lane to the right and can't get over. Sometimes people tailgate even when you're blocked in the lane by multiple cars in front of you, which has no point at all.

That said, Texas does have a problem with road fatalities even compared to states with notoriously poor drivers like CA and IL. They're not the worst in the country, but are quite a bit worse than average.

In fatalities/100 million miles driven:

TX 1.29
CA 1.02
IL 0.96
NY 0.76
MN 0.63
MA 0.54

Numbers from here, which was linked above.

Interesting that despite the Masshole stereotype, Massachusetts has the lowest traffic fatality rate in the country by a good margin.

 

[atmartens]

We need road dieting, slower speeds, fewer cars, smaller vehicles, and we need to stop prioritizing driving over other methods of transportation. We have answers, when will we listen?

 

[Demosthenes642]

I'm OK with the electronic "Time to X" signs as they're not all that different from the regular old "distance to X" signs and provide useful information while also being simple to process.

I'm not OK with anything else on the electronic signs that isn't a warning that's related to driving. Specifically whatever the sign is warning me of ought to be significant enough that taking my attention to read the sign should be less hazardous than whatever danger it's warning me of. Sandstorms, high winds, ice, crash ahead, etc are fine by me.

I certainly sympathize with the intent of Amber/Silver alerts but I still feel they're not road condition related and really shouldn't be on road signs, same goes for dad jokes regardless of quality.

 

[Dark Pumpkin]

I guess it makes sense. Someone who wants to drive recklessly doesn't care how many accidents there were, so they'll just keep driving recklessly without a care in the world for anyone around them or the potential for death. But then there are also the people who don't drive recklessly, a small percentage of which would legitimately get stressed out by seeing an accident/death count.

Now you have just as many reckless assholes as before, but also an increase in stressed drivers.

 

[kgb999]

Ever hear of the post-hoc fallacy?

 

[Maestro4k]

When Tennessee started doing that, I remember joking to my mother that it might encourage some people to increase the number of fatalities, to get a new "high score." I'm not sure we've had any significant decrease in the total fatalities per year since they started doing it.

Kind of sad that joke turned out to be somewhat accurate, just not for the right reason.

 

[ArsPropaganda]

There’s one of these in Portland on a busy major road. I looked up at one the other day and thought wow, how did that… BANG slammed my brakes. Pedestrian middle of the street. It happened because there is a cross walk in the middle of the busy street with no pedestrian warning lights. They could have just installed those instead of this distracting sign that almost had me and others slam into yet another pedestrian.

 

[chi_raven]

They should be turned off at all times unless warning of an incident or highway closure ahead. If they don't have important information to present then STFU.

This was actually the plan here in TN and it even said so on the TDOT website when the signs were first implemented. It said something to the effect that they would only display important/urgent information so that drivers would not get use to the signs always being on and start to ignore them.

That didn't last long and now the signs are always on displaying some type of message. The TDOT website until recently still had the text about the signs only being on in urgent situations, but I could not find it now searching for it again after seeing this article.

 

[Fatesrider]

I've driven in Texas before, though it was about 30 years ago. While my experience was entirely anecdotal, I can't help but think that MAYBE the results of this study were skewed (at least in part) by a regional variation on how people approach driving.

Not to be dissing on Texas for the sake of dissing on Texas, but I found driving in Texas largely to be far more difficult than, say, in California or Oregon. Between the condition and construction of their roads at the time, the effect of weather on the roads and the drivers themselves, Texas rated last on my places I'd want to drive through, and once i left, never went back. This was in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in the early 1990's.

I'd really like to see more cause and effect involved in this study, and maybe run more live studies instead of looking at statistics from the past, and include more places. The increases were minuscule (you know how percentages don't tell the full story, since an increase from 1-2 is a 100% in crease in crashes) and could have been part of some other statistical anomaly like the day of the week, sign position relative to entering/exiting traffic or even weather conditions, or even something unnoticed like that's the day when certain factories ship out products that create more traffic hazards in transporting.

It's an interesting find, and seems intuitive, but I think they need wider studies to definitively prove it.

 

[Trout Mask Replica]

If the various state and local governments actually gave a shit about safety they'd enforce the laws properly. It's already been stated a few times but driving in many (probably all) parts of the US people drive waaaay over the speed limits, rain or shine, day or night, snow, ice. whatever. Worse, I see huge trailer trucks bombing down the road at insane speeds, going into the far left lane all the time, etc. And then there's the plain shit driving of extreme tail-gating, random braking, weaving through tight traffic at high-speed, ad nauseam. Every drive is like living in Mad Max. And in recent years, especially I go days without seeing a single state or local cop. Where the fuck are they?

Here's a thought to lessen to tax burden on good drivers. Send out unmarked cars, hell even regular marked ones, and ticket the shit out of assholes. Make it a priority job, unless an actual emergency or safety issue arises, they should be writing tickets all fucking day. And enforce multiple offences with massive consequences. Every ticket scales up. Get enough, automatic license suspension for a year. Violate that, your vehicle is seized and auctioned and you land in jail. The system loves mandatory 'tough on crime' bullshit when it comes to drugs, apply it where it will do real good.

 

[mikedjames]

When I see brake lights ahead, it is often just before a dot matrix road information sign displaying some information. People have to slow down to read the message. "Wearing seatbelts saves lives".

It is annoying.

 

[13485]

As a person who's taught someone else how to drive, I also find that constantly pointing out things to pay attention to makes the learner drive worse.

Once had to dig into cognitive loadtheory. It boils down to this. You have to gently provide information. The cognitive abilities of the student should not be loaded above 80%. This leads to faster automation of the knowledge.

How on earth do you know what "80%" of the load is for any one person?

 

[Tyrannosaur]

I've heard rumors that some places may display useful stuff (e.g. accident 1 mile ahead keep left) but I haven't seen any actually useful ones myself on the road.

9 times out of 10 when I'm driving its either "well DUH" (like "road wet drive carefully" in pouring rain) or its something saying there is no delays, making everyone hit brakes creating a delay

From my experience driving on I15 around Salt Lake City, there is sometimes useful information. Yesterday I saw a "Left lane closed ahead due to crash 3 miles ahead" that was actually useful despite being the right lane instead.

The most useful information I've seen are announcements like that- emergency lane closures.

I have also seen a few Amber Alerts and Silver Alerts; don't know how useful those were.

Sometimes they say things like "[x] number of highway deaths in Utah last month/to date this month" or "[x] deaths [last month] last year compared to [y] deaths [last month]"

A lot of the time though it's things like "Buckle up because Santa Claus is watching!"-- which I don't seem to mind as much as other commenters, but I doubt is useful.


It would have been nice for the research abstract to mention how often the signs were completely off vs trite displays vs death statistics.

 

[VelvetGlove]

Here is a possible mechanism for caution signs causing increased accident rates: different types of drivers respond differently. A cautious driver will respond to the caution sign by slowing down. By contrast, an aggressive driver will ignore the sign, and respond to slower traffic by speeding up and changing lanes more frequently. The result is a higher difference in velocity between the slowest and fastest cars on the road, and higher accident risk.

The above matches my observations to California driver behavior on rare rainy days: some drivers slow way down, while others drive more aggressively than usual.

 

[AndrewClarke]

They probably should just leave them blank most of the time, except when needed to convey urgent, timely road information.

Many years ago, I read about a study that found that constantly displaying trite messages such as "drive safely," etc. trains drivers to ignore the signs.

My theory is that once they spent all that money on those expensive signs and infrastructure, they felt the need to use them all the time. Otherwise, you know, they're just being wasted.

If the signs are necessary 5% of the time for actual useful information, leave them off 95% of the time. That way, when they're on, I'll pay attention. I think a couple months ago I actually saw a sign that said something like, "Stay alert and keep your eyes on the road". I was, until your sign distracted me, thankyouverymuch.

 

[djs123]

Correlation is not necessarily causation.

 

[T018]

I can't say I find this surprising. I do find it odd that flashing digital screen billboards are not banned out right. I hope this study may grow some legs and may expand to if other extraneous signage is creating an unsafe condition.

 

[PaulWTAMU]

can't speak to the intent of the previous poster. But, Texas is definitely on the far end of the "bad driver" spectrum.

Not my experience. Although driving in Dallas and Austin really sucks, I put that more on inadequate roads and bad designs (here's your exit now get over 4 lanes in heavy traffic in 2/10ths of a mile once you've exited or you're stuck driving another 6 miles out of your way ahahahaha!). For purely WTF drivers I'd say Louisiana is way worse, NM is at least as bad and Wyoming is awful but there's so few drivers overall the effect isn't pronounced

 

[OrvGull]

Data from Texas should not be applied to normal America.

Funny, but a lot of Texas's highway research gets used in other states just because Texas has a lot of highways. The same is true of California, which (among other things) was the first state to formally test freeway crash barriers to see if they actually stopped cars instead of launching them into the air.

 

[OrvGull]

If the signs are necessary 5% of the time for actual useful information, leave them off 95% of the time. That way, when they're on, I'll pay attention. I think a couple months ago I actually saw a sign that said something like, "Stay alert and keep your eyes on the road". I was, until your sign distracted me, thankyouverymuch.

I don't know if this is still true, but when I lived in WA they'd just installed a bunch of these signs and they were dark other than a single lit dot unless there was an important message to convey. I thought that was a good system.

 

[KingStudMuffin]

For super nerd value, image taken close to here:

https://goo.gl/maps/MwtwoHxtBPqGEu6B9