'Safe road' Web site maps traffic fatalities

A new online tool from the University of Minnesota's Center for Excellence in Rural Safety is a creative mash-up that allows you to see where traffic fatalities have occurred on the roads you travel. The Web site, www.saferoadmaps.org uses Google Maps integrated with statistics from the federal government's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) to provide all the details on specific crashes and fatalities. (It uses data from 2006, the most recent available.) It has the potential to influence trip planning and your local driving habits.

I gave saferoadmaps.org a test drive by typing in my home address. I live in a busy area in New Jersey, where there are lots of busy highways and intersections. When I asked for all accidents within a 10-mile radius, up popped a map with several yellow warning symbols, each one indicating the location of a fatal accident. I was relieved to see that the busy road right down the street from our house was incident-free.

I narrowed the radius to two-miles and clicked on the one symbol that appeared. The accident involved a 37-year-old male pedestrian who was hit and killed by a car. The driver and passenger survived, speeding and drinking were not factors, and both occupants of the vehicle were wearing seat belts. In addition to the accident data, there were views of the accident location, including an aerial photograph that allows you to pan in any direction. (Some incidents include street-level views that can also be rotated.) There's also a map view that you can zoom in or out as you choose, as with the Google Maps site.

The tool isn't flawless. It takes a bit of exploring to find the most direct way to retrieve and view the information you want. One tip: to find accidents in a specific area, we found it easiest to click on "Maps" at the top, and then "Safe street maps," and then type in a street address and zip code. Don't forget to set the radius you'd like to search, and then hit "Search locations."

This tool is also interesting if you have a regular route you take to work and want to see how many accidents have happened along the way. I travel the New York State Thruway over the Tappan Zee Bridge to work every day and found that four of the fatalities that occurred in 2006 involved speeding. Checking the maps can help you become more aware of the problems on a specific road, or may even cause you to choose an alternate route if you find that the road you or a family member regularly travels is particularly dangerous.

Other tools on the site allow you to set criteria and filter down accident results based by state. You can choose to see the age of the driver, the type of road (rural or urban) where the incident occurred, time of year, and whether speeding, drinking, or lack of seat belt use was involved.

By mapping out every fatality, this site illustrates the many problems we have on our roads and that information can help drivers as well as policy makers form important judgments to improve travel safety.

For more on safe travel, see our special section on vehicle safety.—Liza Barth