Road behavior is largely influenced by social norms, values, and beliefs. How can we harness the power of our social environments to support crash prevention efforts? How can your agency or organization prioritize safety through policies and practices? This presentation will cover practical tips to encourage a culture of traffic safety in the workplace, at home, and through relationships.

Presented by:
Tracy Russ
Research Associate, Highway Systems Group
ITRE at NC State University

Have you experienced trying to communicate with individuals who have hearing loss? Communication with drivers and/or passengers who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing or DeafBlind can be a challenge. Each individual has their own communication preferences based on their onset of loss and upbringing. Which tools are the best to communicate with them? This webinar will share examples of drivers and/or passengers who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing or DeafBlind experiences with law enforcement officers. Solutions for different scenarios will be discussed.

Presented by:
Donna Platt and Martina Moore-Reid
NC Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

In 2019, over a million drivers in the United States were arrested for DWI. Research shows that convictions and incarceration alone won’t reduce new offenses from high-risk impaired drivers. This presentation provides an overview of evidence-based practices to address assessment and treatment of high-risk impaired drivers after their conviction. This includes research on assessment tools and behavioral characteristics of high-risk impaired drivers. Participants will learn best practices in treatment strategies, available alcohol countermeasures and issues surrounding poly-substance abuse to help criminal justice and treatment professionals maximize their effectiveness in reducing risk to the community.

Participant Take-aways:

Presented by:
Mark Stodola
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Daniel Carter will show the importance of crash data at a statewide level and how NCDOT uses crash data to direct its safety programs and funding. He will show how crash data is used to identify locations where safety improvements are needed and how engineers decide which improvements will be installed. He will discuss why the location information from the crash report form is so important and common challenges that arise with locating crashes to the map. Finally, he will demonstrate a new web based lat/long tool that enables officers to identify the coordinates of a crash location by clicking on the map and quickly and easily copy the numerical values into a crash reporting software form. Angela Berry will present on the importance of crash data from the perspective of a local municipality.

Presented by:
Angela Berry
Charlotte Department of Transportation
&
Daniel Carter
NCDOT Traffic Safety Unit

Data can be overwhelming. NC Vision Zero’s website has many tools that are freely available to explore, each letting the user to explore the various data about NC’s crashes. These tools will break down the data to a level that is not overwhelming. Matt Kuliani, NC Vision Zero’s site guru and a senior member of the Geospatial Analytics and Decision Management group at ITRE at NC State, will guide you through these tools in this 1 hour webinar.

Presented by:
Matt Kuliani

Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State University

You don’t have to have a large budget to launch an effective community outreach campaign. This presentation will cover social media advertising, building effective messages for outreach, and free communication tools.

Presented by:
Tracy Anderson

Traffic Safety Communications Team Lead
Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State University

GERD? Diabetes? They weren’t a problem roadside, but they suddenly crop up in court. What about drivers that start drinking AFTER a crash? Is it legitimate? Often these are more creative reasons than realistic defenses. Furthermore, an expert can reveal to the court that these defenses are not truly defenses to impaired driving.

Presented by:
Paul L. Glover
Branch Head (retired), Forensic Tests for Alcohol Branch,
NC Department of Health and Human Services

Unlike highway crashes and incidents, rail related incidents incur a host of industry-specific impacts can be exponentially more costly. There has been a growing need for an accurate measure of rail incident costs that reflects the broad spectrum of events that occur on the railway, including highway-rail grade crossing crashes, rail trespassing crashes, and non-crash delay incidents.

The Institute for Transportation Research and Education, under the leadership of the North Carolina Rail Division, has developed a user-friendly cost tool that is capable of estimating the comprehensive set of costs that result from a rail incident. The tool evaluates costs stemming from property damage, injuries and fatalities, delay, rerouting, and supply chain events, as well as emergency responder costs.

Pedestrian strikes are a key subset of the many types of rail incidents that occur on North Carolina’s rail network. Crossing deaths of pedestrians (as opposed to those of motor vehicle occupants) have increased from approximately 10 percent of total crossing deaths in the late 1970s to 35 percent in the middle 2010s. As part of this webinar, safety considerations related to pedestrian strikes will be closely examined.

For this webinar, Roger Smock will discuss the importance of rail safety and countermeasures. Steve Bert will demonstrate how the Comprehensive Cost of Rail Incidents Cost Tool can be used to illuminate the economic and social impacts resulting from rail incidents and show how the tool can be used to generate support for countermeasures and expanded safety training. Sarah Searcy will share key findings from her rail trespass research, including key sources of pedestrian conflicts and opportunities to mitigate rail trespass strikes.

Presented by:
Roger Smock
NCDOT

Steve Bert
Planning Communities

Sarah Searcy
Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State University

Learn how to anticipate and effectively respond to defense theories and practices in impaired driving cases. This webinar will cover multiple considerations for law enforcement and prosecutors to help create more powerful case files and ensure effective prosecutions of Driving Under the Influence (DUI/DWI) cases.

Presented by:
Jeff Sifers
Oklahoma DAs Council

Ashley Schluck

Laramie, WY City Attorney

During these times of political and social unrest and division in our nation, especially in the law enforcement and prosecution, it is more important than ever that we all look inward to be cognizant of our own internal beliefs and biases. The purpose of this presentation is to recognize the intersection of personal bias, privilege and how they can affect the way that we administer justice.

Presented by:
Nicole Cofer

West Virginia TSRP

Vision Zero is more than a safety campaign and will require significant community mobilization from diverse sectors and strong leadership in order to be accomplished. So, just how engaged are the community members and key stakeholders in North Carolina to come together to end serious injuries and fatalities on our roads? Using an adapted version of the Community Readiness Assessment (CRA), we interviewed stakeholders across the Vision Zero communities in the state to determine the extent to which communities: 1) understand the problem of road fatalities and serious injuries; 2) have knowledge about current road safety efforts in the community; and 3) are able to leverage the resources and leadership to do so. This webinar will present results from the assessment and propose next steps for increasing community “readiness” in North Carolina to achieve Vision Zero.

Presented by:
Elyse Keefe MPH, MSW
Road Safety Project Coordinator
UNC Injury Prevention Research Center

In this webinar, we will go over all the best practices for setting up and conducting DWI checking stations, from statutory compliance to constitutional concerns. We will also address common issues that occur during a checking station, the evidence you need in court to prove your checking station was lawful, and an overview of the latest developments in checking station case law.

Presented by:
Joe Byrd
NC SHP

Justin Philbeck
NC Conf of DAs

Impairment may be caused by a medical condition, drugs and alcohol. This session will examine some common medical conditions with signs and symptoms also seen with impairment due to drugs and alcohol.

Presented by:
Eric Sweden
Lieutenant
Raleigh Police Department

ITRE examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on bicyclist and pedestrian activity in North Carolina by analyzing count data from the North Carolina Non-Motorized Volume Data Program (NC NMVDP). This webinar will share results that highlight changes in daily and hourly volume patterns on shared use paths, sidewalks, bike lanes, and shared lanes in North Carolina during the pandemic from March 2020 through February 2021 in comparison to trends from previous years. Results show that pedestrian and bicyclist volumes were measurably impacted by the abrupt shift in work, schooling, and commerce during the pandemic when compared to historic trends.

Presented by:
Sarah Searcy, MA
Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager
Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State University

Despite defense claims that the Standard Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs) miss the mark in identifying drug-impaired drivers, the SFSTs are, in fact, a valuable tool for law enforcement to rely upon in identifying drug impairment. Join Wisconsin’s Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors as we delve into these assertions by the defense bar. We’ll look at what, if any, evidence they have to support their claims and offer practical tips on how to respond.

Presented by:
Tara Jenswold

Assistant Attorney General

Wisconsin Department of Justice

Emily Thompson

Assistant Attorney General

Wisconsin Department of Justice

In this webinar, we will examine mobility and crash trends in North Carolina before and during the pandemic, comparing 2019 and 2020 data. We will focus on crash characteristics, including severity and accident type, number of vehicles involved, urban and rural locality, road class, speeding, belt use, impairment, and road lighting condition.

Presented by:
Dr. Randa Radwan

Director

UNC Highway Safety Research Center

Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan

Senior Transportation Research Engineer

UNC Highway Safety Research Center

This webinar will involve a discussion of recent N.C. appellate court cases involving highway safety related issues. The cases will concentrate on stopping of vehicles, impaired driving offenses and vehicular homicides.

Presented by:
Isaac T. (Ike) Avery III

Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor

NC Conference of District Attorneys

Over the past 25 years, tremendous progress has been made in reducing deaths among young drivers and their passengers. This webinar will address next steps for improving safety. Topics will include graduated driver licensing (GDL), the impact of COVID-19 on young drivers, helping parents of new drivers, choosing a safe vehicle, the role of law enforcement, and more.

Presented by:
Arthur Goodwin

Associate Director for Behavioral Research

University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC)

In this webinar we will discuss marijuana related DWI investigations and tips on how to improve them. We will also talk about the science of marijuana and how that impacts investigations. Finally, we will touch on some new trends issues relating to marijuana.

Presented by:
Deena Ryerson

Senior Assistant Attorney General

Oregon Department of Justice

In our scrolling and streaming culture, we all have to work strategically to get through the noise online, reach our target audiences, and encourage behavior change. This one hour webinar will include best practices and practical information about how to communicate effectively with the public.

Presented by:
Tracy Anderson
Research Associate
Institute for Transportation Research and Education at NC State University

Data can be overwhelming. NC Vision Zero’s website has many tools that are freely available to explore, each letting the user to explore the various data about NC’s crashes. These tools will break down the data to a level that is not overwhelming. Matt Kuliani, NC Vision Zero’s site guru and a senior member of the Geospatial Analytics and Decision Management group at ITRE at NC State, will guide you through these tools in this 1 hour webinar.

Why do people do what they do? In road safety, the term “human factors” is typically used to describe how people respond to the roadway environment. However, this term conveys and oversimplified notion of the role of human behavior in transportation safety. Humans are more complex than simply a list of discrete factors. Understanding human behavior is key for any successful transportation safety initiative. In this webinar, participants will learn key principles of human behavior and how to apply that knowledge to solve transportation safety problems.

Presented by:
Bevan Kirley
Senior Research Associate
UNC Highway Safety Research Center

Wes Kumfer
Engineering Research Associate
UNC Highway Safety Research Center

Dan Gelinne
Senior Research Associate
UNC Highway Safety Research Center

North Carolina leads the world in the number of installed reduced conflict intersections, and we also have installed median u-turns, continuous flow intersections, quadrant roadway intersections, and other new designs. The objective of this session is to show why these new intersection designs make sense in some spots. We will show the pros and cons of the new designs, look ahead to a future with more new designs, and discuss how to communicate to drivers and taxpayers regarding the new designs.

Presented by:
Joseph Hummer, PhD, PE
Mobility and Safety Division
NCDOT

Travel surveys can be a valuable source of information on how, where, and why people get around. Yet much like constructing a bridge without a solid grounding in physics, many surveys are seemingly built without knowledge of the principles of survey question construction.

In this webinar, participants will discuss the importance of considering data interpretation during survey construction and ways to test survey questions. Participants will also explore survey do’s and don’ts toward helping us all better understand people’s transportation patterns, perceptions, motivations and decisions.

Presented by:
Wes Kumfer
Engineering Research Associate
UNC Highway Safety Research Center

Seth LaJeunesse
Assistant Director
National Center for Safe Routes to School
UNC Highway Safety Research Center

Tabitha Combs
Research Associate and Lecturer
UNC Department of City and Regional Planning

Wrong way crashes on freeways are a rare but serious occurrence. This webinar will cover an overview of the wrong way driving crash problem and engineering strategies that can be used to combat the problem.

Presented by:
Daniel Carter, PE
Traffic Safety Project Engineer
NCDOT

Road behavior is largely influenced by social norms, values, and beliefs. How can we harness the power of our social environments to support crash prevention efforts? How can your agency or organization prioritize safety through policies and practices? This presentation will cover practical tips to encourage a culture of traffic safety in the workplace, at home, and through relationships.

Presented by:
Tracy Russ
Research Associate, Highway Systems Group
ITRE at NC State University

Driving and community mobility is an important instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) needed to participate in adult activities such as work. However, this complex IADL requires a high level of function and skillful integration of executive function when compared to other IADLs. Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have behaviors that often hinder their independence and participation within community mobility. Based on this need, the Driving and Community Mobility Bootcamp was developed to prepare young adults with high-functioning ASD (HFASD) for driving and the skills needed to independently navigate within their communities. Based on seven years of data, this presentation will offer evidence to highlight best practices for addressing driving and community mobility with teens/young adults with high functioning ASD.

Presented by:
Dr. Anne Dickerson
East Carolina University

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