Arizona
SHSP Key Components
Emphasis Areas
Enforcement/Adjudication
Enforce existing city, county, and tribal distracted driving/cell phone ordinances until January 1, 2021.
Issue warnings for violation of A.R.S. 28-014 until January 1, 2021. Track the number of warnings issued by each agency.
Enforce with fines A.R.S. 28-014 effective January 1, 2021.
Education
Support distracted driving education and awareness efforts, particularly of A.R.S. 28-014, with strong multiple-channel messaging and outreach to discourage distracted driving; may include an education video about A.R.S. 28-014. Consider collaborating with media Editorial Boards to provide information about the dangers of distracted driving, and the new distracted driving statute.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Promote mobility options for older drivers as an alternative to driving.
Enforcement/Adjudication
Continue DUI Task Force Enforcement. Support the use of high-visibility enforcement techniques, saturation patrols, and integrated enforcement tactics.
Enhance DUI Drug Enforcement. Support law enforcement training in DRE, Drug Impairment Training for Educational Professionals (DITEP), ARIDE, Phlebotomy, and SFST/Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN).
Expand number of officers statewide who are trained on E-Warrant.
Provide traffic officers with needed equipment: Preliminary Breath Testing (PBT) device for all traffic officers; Expand Intoxilyzer 9000 deployment; False/Fake ID card mobile app.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Establish tablet-based DRE database for Arizona.
Continue and expand the use of alternative transportation modes including the use of sober designated drivers and ride services.
Education
Expand “KNOW YOUR LIMIT” program to all agencies statewide.
Support alcohol-, marijuana-, and other drug-related enforcement efforts with strong multiple-media messaging and outreach to encourage sober driving.
Engineering
Identify individual or groups of intersections with fatal and serious injury crash patterns that can be addressed through infrastructure upgrades or improvements. FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasures related to intersections include: Reduced Conflict Left-Turn Intersections; Roundabouts; Systemic Application of Multiple Low-Cost Countermeasures at Stop-Controlled Intersections; Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPI) at signalized intersections with high numbers of pedestrians; Dedicated Left- and Right-Turn Lanes at intersections, including at two-way stop-controlled intersections where significant turning volumes exist.
Additional countermeasures to consider: Intersection lighting at locations with over-representation of nighttime crashes; Improve left-turn lane offsets to provide additional visibility to help address left-turn crashes (MAG’s Left-Turn Crash Mitigation Implementation Template and Guidance provides information on this countermeasure)Consider FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasure: Corridor Access Management. Encourage ADOT and local jurisdictions to develop and adopt access management policies.
Consider FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasure: Yellow Change Intervals. Evaluate and adopt consistent signal timing clearance intervals policies across state and local jurisdictions to eliminate driver confusion.
Evaluate left-turn phasing practices and policies.
Review and update corridor traffic signal timing and coordination on a regular schedule (every three to five years minimum).
Improve traffic signal timing and coordination between jurisdictional signal systems to improve operations and reduce driver frustration.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Consider adopting Intersection Control Evaluation (ICE) policies and procedures to evaluate and select the geometry and control for an intersection. Consider lifecycle cost and flexibility in the decision process. (Refer to: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/ice/)
Enforcement/Adjudication
Encourage and expand data-driven speed and red-light-running enforcement, including use of technology to assist enforcement. Focus should be on the top violations associated with intersection fatal and serious injury crashes (e.g., speeding, red-light running, failure to yield right of way, etc.).
Install red-signal enforcement lights to assist enforcement of red-light runners. The red-signal enforcement light activates simultaneously with the red signal phase, providing an enforcement officer located downstream from an intersection with a visible indication of the upstream red phase so they can determine when a vehicle has violated the red phase. Relatively small, low-cost lights are mounted on the top, bottom, or rear of a traffic signal and are wired into the signal controller for accurate red-signal phase indication.
Education
Educate the public and decision-makers on the safety benefits of traffic safety improvements, including but not limited to technology-assisted enforcement, roundabouts, access management, and flashing yellow arrows.
Educate the public on the dangers of red-light running, including how many fatalities involve red-light running. Emphasize that approximately 95% of all fatal crashes include driver behavior as a contributing factor.
Incident Management/EMS
Evaluate Emergency Vehicle Preemption system implementation practices statewide.
Expand deployment of Emergency Vehicle Preemption systems.
Engineering
Develop a statewide systemic lane-departure crash mitigation program to identify and address high-crash (fatalities and serious injuries) and high-risk segments for lane-departure crashes to be addressed through infrastructure improvements. Strategy focus areas are: a) Keep vehicles on the road; b) Improve recovery area; c) Minimize crash severity.
The following tools can be applied to identify countermeasures that upon implementation serve to reduce lane-departure crashes: RSA; Arizona Roadway Departure Safety Implementation Plan (RDSIP); FHWA EDC-5 – Reducing Rural Roadway Departures; Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM).Keep Vehicles on the Road – Implement improvements to aid drivers in maintaining their focus and ability to stay on the road. Utilize FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasures, such as: Longitudinal Rumble Strips and Stripes on Two-Lane Roads – Install centerline and edge-line rumble strips or enhanced edge line profiled pavement markings, such as six-inch edge lines, wet-reflective material, or epoxy, on rural roads, especially two-lane roads.
Enhanced Delineation and Friction for Horizontal Curves: Enhance curve delineation using chevrons, post-mounted delineators, oversized signs, brighter/wider (such as eight-inch)/wet-reflective markings, enhanced guardrail delineation, post-mounted retroreflective sheeting, pavement markings through horizontal curves and tangent approaches (“Curve Ahead,” “Slow”) or dynamic speed-actuated feedback warning signs, and LED raised pavement markers. Consider utilizing high friction surface treatments.
Where feasible, install combination of shoulder rumble strips with additional shoulder widening, or where feasible, pave existing shoulders, widen existing paved shoulders, or establish gravel/stabilized “usable” shoulder extension at 1V:20H slope or flatter particularly where paved shoulder width is less than 8 feet.Improve Recovery Area (Prevent Lane-Departure Crash) Implement clear zone management to increase/improve the roadside recovery area to allow more time and space for corrective action by drivers to prevent collisions/rollovers. Where feasible, consideration for incorporating clear zone management activities should be incorporated into projects, such as: Remove/relocate objects within the recovery area along the side of the road in high-risk locations; Apply paving technologies to negate vertical drop-offs and facilitate driver ability to maintain vehicle control under instances of lane departure, such as Safety Edge; Conduct slope flattening, repair, restoration, and maintenance to reduce likelihood of rollover on > 33% slopes, or recovery on > 25% slopes; Improve shoulders by dispersing aggregate along the road edge to provide a more stable recovery area beyond the edge of pavement. Millings or aggregate are dispersed at 1V:6H or flatter.
Minimize Crash Severity Implement improvements in high-crash and high-risk locations to reduce the severity of the lane-departure crash. These include addressing roadside infrastructure to minimize the potential to collide with another vehicle or object or by installing infrastructure with breakaway technology to reduce the severity of a collision with that object. Utilize FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasures, where warranted, such as longitudinal barriers and barrier terminals
Enforcement/Adjudication
Continue motorcycle enforcement details, including split lane and speeding.
Education
Require mandatory training for license (M) endorsements.
Provide motorcycle safety training scholarships (American Motorcycle Safety Awareness Foundation [AMSAF]).
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Enforce “no split lane”; consider possible legislation to prohibit HOV use by motorcycles, to reduce misuse including speeding and reckless driving in an HOV lane.
Enforcement/Adjudication
Increase high-visibility and integrated occupant protection enforcement for seatbelts and child restraints.
Education
Train additional law enforcement officers as child restraint system installation technicians.
Support occupant protection enforcement efforts with strong multiple-channel messaging and outreach to encourage greater seatbelt and child restraint use.
Implement targeted outreach campaigns to address groups with low restraint use.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Consider legislation for primary enforcement of mandatory restraint use (primary seat belt law).
Consider legislation for primary enforcement of mandatory restraint use for all vehicle seating positions (rear seat belt law).
Consider legislation to increase fines and penalties for non-use of occupant restraints.
Expand the Children are Priceless Passengers (CAPP) program.
Engineering
Identify and prioritize intersections and segments of state and local roadways (including tribal) with the highest number of pedestrian crashes that can be addressed through infrastructure improvements. Conduct RSAs at the locations to identify appropriate countermeasures. Develop and implement projects at the locations.
Promote and implement practices to set appropriate speed limits that consider the pedestrian environment and safety.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Develop statewide systemic pedestrian safety improvements program to identify and prioritize intersections and segments of state and local roadways with geometric and traffic conditions that contribute to pedestrian crashes that can be addressed through infrastructure improvements. The Arizona Pedestrian Safety Action Plan (see call-out box) identifies a crash risk assessment methodology. The crash risk assessment methodology considers areas with higher proportions of vulnerable populations (examples include older adults, students, zero-car households, high pedestrian traffic, public transit, and school bus stops).
Promote and implement processes, practices, and procedures within state and local agencies to incorporate pedestrian safety into roadway improvements funding prioritization processes.
Promote requirements for pedestrian safety to be considered during development review processes. Examples include requiring evaluation of pedestrian safety in traffic impact analyses and during development plan reviews.
Data
Collect data on pedestrian volumes to help assess safety risk. Create a statewide pedestrian data repository/online database. This may include before/ after pedestrian data at project improvement locations.
Enforcement/Adjudication
Collaborate with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to conduct targeted enforcement in high-pedestrian-activity and high-crash areas. Engineers and planners can support law enforcement to identify locations based on analysis of pedestrian crash data.
Collaborate with state, local, and tribal law enforcement to establish a Pedestrian Safety Task Force (similar to the DUI Task Force) to conduct high-visibility pedestrian safety enforcement.
Collaborate with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to encourage consistent collection of detailed pedestrian crash reports. Work to ensure that crash report coding is accurate and the narrative descriptions by officers are comprehensive.
Education
Establish and promote a local and statewide “Pedestrian Safety Month” in partnership with public safety and media.
Collaborate with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies and public health agencies to conduct pedestrian safety education. Programs will be focused on both pedestrians and motorists of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Target communications and outreach to communities that experience high numbers of pedestrian crashes. Messages can address behaviors including: limited conspicuity, drivers failing to yield, crossing behaviors at transit and other crossing locations, risks of walking while impaired or districted, and risks to pedestrians while driving distracted or impaired
Collaborate with ADOT to restore Safe Routes to School programs, including elementary age, school-based pedestrian safety education programs.
Provide technical guidance, assistance, and training to small agencies, tribal, and local governments experiencing pedestrian challenges. An example training curriculum is “Designing for Pedestrian Safety,” offered by the National Highway Institute.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Promote jay-walking ordinances in jurisdictions state-wide.
Enforcement/Adjudication
Collaborate with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to conduct targeted enforcement in high-pedestrian-activity and high-crash areas.
Education
Collaborate with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies and public health agencies to conduct pedestrian safety education. Programs will be focused on both pedestrians and motorists of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Events may include bicycle rodeos at which bicycle helmets are distributed.
Conduct elementary age, school-based pedestrian safety education programs.
Prepare public messages to educate pedestrians boarding and alighting buses to walk to the nearest intersections to cross the street.
Prepare public messages to educate about how to safely operate an e-scooter.
Data
Identify problems or trends in crash data collection, analysis, or distribution. Make recommendations to enhance crash data. Rely on use of Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); Accident Location Identification Surveillance System (ALISS); Arizona State Trauma Registry; Safety Analyst.
Promote initiatives and identify funding resources for all Arizona agencies, including tribal communities, to migrate to the TraCS System, or a similar approved system to create a consistent and uniform crash data collection process.
Expand outreach to state, regional, and tribal law enforcement to improve crash reporting and improve reporting consistency.
Identify gaps between Arizona Crash Report Form, Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria 5th Edition. Modify as needed to be consistent as encouraged by the NHTSA
Identify and apply crash-related data from other public health and safety registries to identify and evaluate preventative and injury management best practices.
Identify and address geographic gaps in Model Inventory of Roadway Elements Fundamental Data Elements (MIRE FDE) roadway and traffic volume data items.
Test Arizona application of predictive safety analyses to evaluate project prioritization criteria. Implement predictive safety analysis for the network screening process.
Perform, apply, and promote Highway Safety Manual Criteria for Safety Effectiveness Evaluation of safety improvement projects.
Education
Educate local, COGs, MPOs, and tribal staff on how data-driven approaches can be used to justify safety improvement funding.
Provide technical assistance to COGs, MPOS, and local and tribal agencies to prepare for and submit HSIP Applications – including HSIP project identification and cost estimates. Provide technical support to prepare and update local, COG, MPO, and Tribal Transportation Safety Plans.
Engineering
Consider speed reduction in heavy traffic zones. Consider variable speed limits in heavy traffic zones. An example is I-17 between Flagstaff and Phoenix, or I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson. The speed limit would be modified in congested conditions, incidents, or inclement weather.
Legislative/Policy/Programmatic
Establish a Speed Enforcement Task Force statewide, with media exposure. Drag racing will be an important messaging element.
Consider possible legislation to allow double fines (A.R.S 28-710) for speeding/reckless driving in construction zones on local streets statewide, and especially in large cities. Current statute enables double fines on state highways only.
Review criminal speed citations/arrests and modify aggressive driving statutes.
Enforcement/Adjudication
Increase high-visibility enforcement of reckless driving and speed laws; support use of speed trailers and messaging for awareness.
Encourage practices for law enforcement presence through all major work zones on state highways and major arterials.
Education
Support aggressive driving and speed enforcement efforts with strong multiple channel messaging and outreach to encourage appropriate speeds.
Reestablish and support program to teach defensive driving to high school students.