Newton Police have created this interactive map which shows where car accidents crashes have taken place, sortable up to the past year.
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
Newton Police have created this interactive map which shows where car accidents crashes have taken place, sortable up to the past year.
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
It’s amazing how many of these are drivers smashing into inanimate objects like curbs, parked cars, trees, etc. Another huge number is drivers hitting other drivers while stuck in traffic.
But hey, it’s cyclists that are the problem… and kids on scooters who don’t wear helmets… amirite?
#crashnotaccident (I’ll update the title)
Kudos to the Newton Police IT for publishing this! Next step, it would be wonderful to have this data in a searchable GIS system, something like this that also breaks down visually and shows hotspots. Perhaps Boston would be willing to share their app?
Well Chuck a 12 year old kid riding a scooter on the street with no helmet was seriously injured in West Newton Hill last Friday so yes, that is a problem.
I’m very curious to see what happens with Lime now that their scooters are all over Brookline. Lime Bikes, be it pedal or e-assist have virtually disappeared from Newton Center. It was reported that they pulled the pedal bikes and that they will only provide e-assist bikes if the city/town also agrees to scooters. I believe it was reported that scooters are not permitted in Newton.
That said the biggest problem is with with distracted and aggressive drivers
Claire, I read Chuck’s point as to where the responsibility lies… that people are often quick to blame cyclists, when motorists are going around hitting inanimate objects, and while we don’t know the circumstances of the recent scooter collision, the media headlines did not even acknowledge that there was a person involved operating the vehicle.
Distracted and aggressive drivers are certainly a problem. The biggest problem are Newton’s outdated roads. Voters agreed to a massive override with the suggestion that the DPW would not just embark on an aggressive repaving program, but that they would also seek to reconstruct roads to be safer as they did so. For the most part, the DPW is putting curbs and pavement back exactly where they’ve been since the 1920’s. Why should we expect anything but faster moving traffic on the new smooth pavement and more severe collisions? (at least where there aren’t standing traffic jams)
@Chuck –
I consider myself a safe driver. The only accidents I’ve had were things like being rear-ended by someone looking at her GPS instead of the road or a cabbie backing into the side of my car.
I consider bikes and scooters a problem only when they make it almost impossible for me to avoid them, like the cyclist who came up on my right and made a left turn in front of me without waiting for me to come to a full stop. I’m very aware of how much damage I’ll do if I hit someone, but I need to be given a fighting chance to see and react.
Again Chuck downplays the importance of helmets in his typical obnoxious and smug tone.
While we are on this topic (and Adam, thanks for updating the title), I also want to examine other language we see regarding crashes, specifically the “car crashes into building/cyclist/pedestrian” type of reporting that we have most often seen in the Tab and Globe.
Example: https://newton.wickedlocal.com/news/20190520/jaguar-crashes-into-newton-house?rssfeed=true
So far we do not have autonomous vehicles in Newton, so there is a driver nominally in control of (or at least responsible for) each of these cars. Why are we leaving the driver out of the equation in these stories? Should we not be telling the fuller story?: “Driver Crashes Jaguar into Newton House.”
To leave out the driver absolves them of responsibility.
I’m not down playing helmets. As I’ve said before (and can say forever, but still not get credit for it) I wear a helmet and encourage others to do so.
But the lack of a helmet isn’t the problem.
In the case of the 12 year old… YES… he was hit by a driver. The police were quoted as pointing out the lack of a helmet, but said nothing about the driver. Did the driver have a cell phone in his possession? That’s a fact too, and just as relevant, but it was never stated.
The problem is not the scooter rider, it’s not the cyclists. Yes, there are cyclists who may be less than stellar. But what about the car that sped through the crosswalk on Needham Street at about 45 mph when two of us were in the middle of the road? What about the cars that I see going through red lights? Or those who are on their cell phones? Those are far more common AND far more dangerous.
@Adam, it may not have been in the headline but the articles in the Patch and Tab both reference the driver, his age and the fact that he stayed at the scene
https://patch.com/massachusetts/newton/newton-boy-riding-scooter-hit-car
@Chuck “But the lack of a helmet isn’t the problem.
In the case of the 12 year old… YES… he was hit by a driver. The police were quoted as pointing out the lack of a helmet, but said nothing about the driver. Did the driver have a cell phone in his possession? That’s a fact too, and just as relevant, but it was never stated.”
How can you say they article said nothing about the drive? It said he stayed at the scene and cooperated. It also said no one was charge?
How do you know that the kid didn’t lose control of the scooter or dart out in front of the car? Maybe the child was on his cell phone. We just don’t know. I’m not sure what you are referring to as being a fact. Personally, I found the article to be lacking in so much detail. Like the fact that is is illegal, not to mention incredibly risky and stupid for a 12 year old to be operating a scooter on the road. And the lack of a helmet very could very much have added to his injuries which described as serious but not life threatening. That detail would serve as a wake up call to parents who allow 12 year old children to illegally operate a motorize scoot on the street.
It did lack facts. It never said if the kid suffered a head injury. So the lack of a helmet means nothing based on that. Could the child have suffered a head injury? Sure. If that was a fact, then the lack of a helmet would be worth mentioning. But without knowing that, then it is just AS RELEVANT to understand whether the driver had a cell phone. Did the cell phone play a role? We have no facts to know. Therefore it is just as relevant.
But if I’m looking at the facts by way of data… in which drivers in this city hit things that DO NOT MOVE with alarming frequency, then I would deduct that it is quite possible that the driver, not the scooter rider, could be at fault. But you, and most drivers, are very quick to find all the ways in which the victim may be to blame here.
Again, it is possible that he is, but when I look at the list of things that people hit that aren’t moving, it makes me wonder why we only view through one lens.
The article lacks facts about what the driver may or may not have done, and about what the rider may or may not have done, because it was written before an investigation took place. The police are not going to speculate. I don’t think the reference to the lack of a helmet was in any way meant to suggest blame for the accident on the rider – it was to call attention to the critical importance of wearing a helmet, regardless of the cause of the accident. Let’s let this one go for now, while a child is in the hospital and we have no facts.
Seems like the map doesn’t show multiple crashes at a single intersection (though the list on the right does include them).
For instance, Cherry and Webster has multiple crashes, but only one car icon, and only one crash comes up when the intersection is clicked.
Not all accidents are equal in consequence, so that makes me wary of the value of the map. It would be more helpful to know which intersections require greater driver attention. One example: map shows one accident at the Austin St./Lowell Ave. intersection which is extremely dangerous. I’m at 150% attention when I pass through it, avoid it when I can, and note that other drivers take great care crossing through it as well. The map indicates that just one accident has occurred at that point, but it doesn’t make it any less dangerous.
I’m not terribly comfortable with the blaming going on here. No one, no matter how s/he is traveling, wants to be in an accident. Use the map as it’s intended – these are places to take extra care and caution when driving, biking, or walking.
I thought this map is used by the city to try to reduce accidents
Residents should be looking at trends. If there’s an location that is consistently having issues after several years why hasn’t the city attempted to try to prevent it using:
– speed bumps
– narrowing the road with markers
– extra lights or stop sign
Residents should have access to a map where we can compare different years…
Jane, that’s exactly the point. It’s not about blame. It’s about how we talk about these incidents. If we say “oh well, it was an accident” it not only assumes innocence, it implies nothing could have been done about it. We should treat each crash as something we can learn from, not just the cost of business running a city. Similarly, if we introduce a crash in the media as an accident or make no mention of the party operating a car, it shows bias, yes Claire, even if the article later says the driver didn’t flee the scene, etc.
Mike, the Boston app handles “hot spots” better, though still not great.
Let me start out by saying thanks to the NPD for putting this data together. For data-driven transportation design, we need data. This is a start.
Bugek commented about trends and “why hasn’t the City used traffic calming measures in high-crash areas”. First, Newton does. Several recent projects (West Newton Square, Waltham/Crafts, Needham St, …) are all crash hotspots and are being addressed using redesign and traffic calming measures.
However, there needs to be a better flow of information from the police to the transportation and planning departments (and the public). Police reports, which contain important narratives about the crash, are only available (to anyone) in final PDF form. The ability to search and aggregate the information isn’t available for staff or Councilors at this time, even through the NPD. That makes it much harder to draw conclusions about crashes (particularly those involving bicyclists or pedestrians).
This is a major opportunity lost to target our infrastructure dollars where they are most needed.
In an ideal world, anyone would be able to use a city map to subscribe to all sorts of civic incidents nears you (crashes, road work, 311 requests, street cleaning, etc) and be notified when they happen. This would supplement reverse 911, serve the same basic purpose, but do it electronically rather than by phone. But until then, we need more cooperation between the city departments regarding crash data.
Bugek also mentioned speed bumps. Newton has been very slow to adopt raised devices such as speed tables, raised crosswalks, and raised intersections. These devices work very well and have been used for years in Cambridge (and now in Brookline and Somerville) with the approval of their local fire departments.
Until recently there has been strong pushback against raised traffic devices from the Fire Department, but that has softened recently. With a new Chief, I hope we can make even more progress on installing well-proven, well-tested traffic calming measures to improve driver compliance with speed limits and increase the safety of pedestrians.
@Bugek @Mike Halle,
Let’s be sensible about this. More traffic calming is the wrong fix.
Look at the nature of the accidents. Drivers in Newton don’t hit parked cars, trees, curbs, and other stationary objects because of excessive speed. They do these things because they are not paying attention. By inference, a lot of other collisions likely are also happening because of driver inattention, not because of excessive speed.
We need drivers to unglue their eyes from their texting, web surfing, phone dialing, navigation setting, and whatever other nonsense they’re doing that is not driving.
@Dulles – are you kidding? Of course excess speed is often a factor. So is inattention. One does not preclude the other. And both together occur far too often.
@Mike: “However, there needs to be a better flow of information from the police to the transportation and planning departments (and the public). Police reports, which contain important narratives about the crash, are only available (to anyone) in final PDF form. The ability to search and aggregate the information isn’t available for staff or Councilors at this time, even through the NPD. That makes it much harder to draw conclusions about crashes (particularly those involving bicyclists or pedestrians).”
Given that they police and the transportation and transportation planning departments work for the same employer, one would think the communication flow could be improved – almost immediately?
A comment has been removed because the user used a nonexistent email address.
Dulles,
Yes, drivers (all road users, I’d say) need to pay more attention.
Traffic calming turns the most severe consequences of inattention from fatal to survivable. Mistakes shouldn’t have a high risk of being death sentences.
Traffic calming provides more reaction time and room for error for everyone.
Traffic calming turns a greater percentage of vehicle collisions, should they happen, into fender-benders.
Traffic calming doesn’t always reduce average speeds much, but it can eliminate a parent’s worst nightmare: those one or two vehicles streaking down the street at twice the speed limit while your kids are playing outside.
Traffic calming improves adherence to the posted speed limits, usually without reducing road capacity.
Traffic calming returns neighborhoods to neighbors, whether they drive, walk, bike, or just hang out in their homes.
For communities that have implemented traffic calming successfully, it has become one of the most requested municipal services, with long waiting lists for neighborhoods to be considered.
I commend the Mayor for putting the first dedicated money for traffic calming into the City’s budget. We need more resources, including money, traffic engineers and public work staff, if we want to make a real impact on safety and quality of life in our neighborhoods.
I feel we should think big. Every school should be a “complete streets” zone, designed for the safety and enjoyment of all those that use these important civic institutions. We should design them proactively – all city departments involved – and implement them when the opportunity presents itself.
That way, every resident and school age child gets the benefit of a new, progressive vision of our neighborhood streets and streetscapes.
I guess I need to explain my point. I am not opposed to traffic slowing measures. Fact is, Newton has already executed a lot of such measures. All I’m saying is let’s now sensibly apply an 80/20 rule here.
As a long-time cyclist, I am very concerned about safety. I find by far the greatest threat to my safety here in Newton is (1) inattentive driving, followed by (2) aggressive driving. Egregious speeders are rare. Cars around here are much more likely to crawl along in heavily congested traffic than go ‘twice the speed limit’. I don’t recall the last time I’ve seen someone drive 50mph in village centers, or 60mph on city streets, or 70+mph on some of our traffic corridors.
So, all I’m saying is that we’ve already invested millions to impede traffic flows in the city. We can keep buying more and more bump-outs and speed bumps, tighten turns, narrow lanes, stop signs, traffic signals, what have you. But how about we invest more in traffic enforcement for a while. The threat of being pulled over and written a big ticket for aggressive or inattentive driving might be the most effective ‘traffic calming measure’ of all.
Dulles, speeders may not be the top concern when it comes to incidents (# of dots on the map) but speed kills (stopping times, fatality rates). The occasional speeder does matter, and there’s no point going to extremes like 70mph. Collisions at speeds above 40 are going to end badly. Google your favorite graphic, for example:
http://seattlegreenways.org/wp-content/uploads/20-30-40-fatality-rate.png
Many of our roads are designed to comfortably travel 40mph or more.
I disagree with you that we’ve done nearly enough to make our streets safer. Most of the projects Mike cites are larger projects with different sources of funding, not everyday road work. Yes, enforcement ought to be part of the picture, but don’t kid yourself, it’s the most temporary form of traffic calming. It would be great to see some data there as well…
@Adam, I strongly agree with you that we should rely on data to back where Newton is best off allocating its transportation safety budget. Traffic management, education, enforcement — all have a role to play here.
I suggest based on the evidence of drivers crashing into every kind of stationary object imaginable that this is evidence we have been too light on enforcement (and maybe education).