Traffic Safety

Traffic Safety

Andrew Warren, P.E.
Staff Traffic Safety Engineer
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (501) 569-2642

Mission Statement

The Traffic Safety Section Mission is to help ARDOT achieve its goal of providing safer roads by reducing the number of fatal and suspected serious injury crashes on all public roads in collaboration with all safety stakeholders.

Section Responsibilities

This Section is responsible for:

  • Reviewing motor vehicle crash reports to identify potential safety concerns on state highways.
  • Conduct hot spot and systemic or systematic crash analyses on selected locations and submit considerations for safety improvements.
  • Verifying all crash reports statewide for correct road system (i.e. highway, section, and log mile) and updating it in the eCrash database.
  • Computing statewide average crash rates by roadway type and crash severity levels.
  • Performing roadway safety management processes according to the Highway Safety Manual that includes network screening, diagnosis, selection of countermeasures, economic appraisal, project prioritization, and safety effectiveness evaluation.
  • Managing the annual reporting of the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) in conformance to the Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and reporting it to the Federal Highway Administration.
  • Updating the Department’s SHSP every five years.
  • Analysis of wrong-way crashes and publishing of the Annual Wrong-Way Crash Study after Maintenance’s field investigation.
  • Analysis of fatal and suspected serious injury crashes for Crash Statistics in order to determine emphasis areas for the SHSP.

Other Resources

  • Arkansas Crash Analytics Tool (ACAT) – The ACAT is a publicly available analysis tool for crash data in the state of Arkansas provided and maintained by ARDOT.
  • Highway Safety Office (HSO) – The HSO is a part of the Arkansas State Police that is in charge of coordinating statewide behavioral highway safety programs as well as administering federal highway funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) – NHTSA is the federal government agency that is responsible for enforcing performance standards on vehicles, as well as entering into partnerships with other government agencies in order to help lower injuries and fatalities due to motor vehicle accidents.
  • Fatality Analysis Report System (FARS) – FARS is a program that is ran and maintained by the NHTSA providing fatal crash information for Congress, the public, as well as the NHTSA.
  • Towards Zero Deaths (TZD) – The TZD program in Arkansas is aimed at eliminating fatalities due to motor vehicle accidents across the state of Arkansas. This goal is being worked on through a series of partnerships including Arkansas State Police, Arkansas Department of Transportation, and the Arkansas Department of Health.