Rural roads 2nd most deadly

Florida's rural roads are among the nation's most dangerous, a new study says.

The Road Information Program, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank backed by industry groups, reported Thursday that Florida's rural roads combine for a higher death rate than those in any other state except Arizona.

The research found that 3.7 people died on Florida's rural roads in 2003 for every 100 million miles that motorists drove. That made rural roads more than three times as dangerous as Florida's urban roads.

"There's a problem here. That's a very high rural-road fatality rate," said Frank Moretti, the group's director of policy and research.

Arizona's rural-road death rate was 4.6. South Carolina was third at 3.6. Nationally, the death rate for rural roads was 2.7.

For all other roads nationally, the death rate was 1.0.

"We were surprised" by the study's findings, said Tait Martin, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation. "But our focus has to go from being surprised to, 'Let's get some programs out there to make our roads safer.' "

Martin said those programs include a $70 million kitty set aside for local safety engineers in each of the department's seven districts to fix local problems this year and next year.

District 5, which covers Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties, is getting $5 million each year. Much of the money goes toward urban fixes, such as the widening of U.S. Highway 192 in Kissimmee, but District 5 Safety Engineer Anthony Nosse said some is going to rural projects.

They include the addition of paved shoulders such as on County Road 42 in Lake County.

The think-tank officials said rural roads are consistently more dangerous than urban roads across the nation. They did not provide many details on Florida except to say it has old rural roads that are becoming outdated and are now handling too much traffic.

The typical fatal crash on a rural road is caused when a driver loses attention just long enough to make a mistake, Moretti said. The rural roads, mostly high-speed, narrow, two-lane highways with tight corners and no or narrow shoulders, don't provide much margin for error. Vehicles leave the road and hit something or roll over, or cross the centerline into head-on collisions.

"What became clear in here is the inadequate design of many rural roads," he said. "If a motorist makes a minor error and leaves the roadway or goes into an opposing lane, too often the results are catastrophic."

Law-enforcement efforts, driver behavior and emergency-response times can affect death rates, but road design is critical, Moretti said.

"The goal is what we call a forgiving highway," he said.

The group examined fatal-crash data and traffic-volume data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for rural state and county roads, not including interstate freeways.

Each state designates which of its roads is "rural" based on a federal definition, covering those that are not contiguous to any population center of 5,000 or more people. Officials said the study should include such roads as State Road 520 in Orange County, although they did not discuss specific roads.

Last November the Orlando Sentinel examined the deadliest state roads in Central Florida, finding that several of the worst are rural. State Road 60 through southern Osceola County was the region's deadliest state road, with a death rate of 7.6, the Sentinel found.

Doug Callaway, president of Floridians for Better Transportation, another nonprofit group backed by industry groups, said safety concerns on rural roads are like all other road problems in Florida -- they suffer from lack of money. Citing Florida DOT estimates, Callaway said the state is $23 billion short during the next 10 years just to keep pace with growth.

"That's just to keep it, if you want a negative spin, as bad as it is now," he said.

Copyright (c) 2005, Orlando Sentinel | By Scott Powers, Sentinel Staff Writer
 

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