TVW Inside Olympia -- Shelly Baldwin, Washington Traffic Safety Commission
“About 75% of fatalities have one of four factors: the driver was impaired, the driver was driving too fast, people in the car weren’t buckled up, and distraction.” -- Shelly Baldwin, acting director of the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission.
Road engineers are designing more roundabouts and narrowing lanes to naturally reduce speed. Meanwhile, Washington State Patrol is adding 21 troopers to focus on high-risk corridors, and deploying Target Zero Troopers in eight districts to augment standard enforcement.
To curb high-risk driving, the Legislature passed a law allowing judges to order speed limiter technology in the cars of repeat offenders. The state is also piloting telematics, which collects anonymized data from smartphones and vehicles to identify speeding, hard braking, and distracted driving patterns. The technology revealed that 30% of drivers are using their phones while behind the wheel.
The episode also includes the broadcast premiere of the Commission’s latest public service announcement, scheduled for widescale release in July. Thanks to TVW for sharing this show. To stream this show and other TVW, go to TVW.org.
