State Highway Safety Report (2020) - Colorado
The following provides a summary of the Highway Safety Improvement Program’s (HSIP) safety performance measures and State safety performance targets. As per the Safety PM Final Rule, States are required to set annual safety performance targets in the HSIP annual report for the number of fatalities, rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), number of serious injuries, rate of serious injures per 100 million VMT, and number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries. The safety performance targets are based on 5-year rolling averages. States have the flexibility to use the methodology they deem most appropriate. FHWA encourages States to review data sets and trends and consider factors that may affect targets. The safety performance targets should be data-driven, realistic, and attainable and should align with the performance management framework and legislative intent.
A State Department of Transportation (DOT) has met or made significant progress towards meeting its safety performance targets when at least four of the five safety performance targets established under 23 CFR 490.209(a) have been met or the actual outcome is better than the baseline performance. The baseline performance is the 5-year average ending with the year prior to the establishment of the target.
The Basis for Target and Additional Comments are provided by the State in their HSIP Annual Report and have not been edited by FHWA. Any questions about individual State reports should be directed to the respective State DOT. For additional information about each State's HSIP, the complete reports are available at https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/hsip/reports/.
More information and resources on Safety Performance Management are available at https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/hsip/spm/.
All State data used to populate the State Highway Safety Reports for 2020 are available for download at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/reporting/state/tpm_dashboard_data.zip.
Additional Comments
2021 Comments:
Over the past few months, CDOT staff have taken into account the efforts and analysis of the STSP planning process and the 15% reduction target it has set for 2023, as well as trend analyses of the 2008 – 2019 existing data and is recommending the below targets for the five-year rolling average of 2017-2021. The targets established this year will be assessed for progress by FHWA in 2023. The 2017-2021 targets incorporate trend analysis of past years, consideration of the transportation safety climate factors and causalities, and actions that CDOT and other safety stakeholder agencies are taking to reduce all crashes – but primarily the targets established are consistent with the assertive vision of the Colorado Strategic Transportation Safety Plan (STSP). While Colorado and CDOT are still endeavoring to move toward zero deaths and injuries and significantly reduced crashes, these targets established are for the purposes of national target setting and are done so with both the Moving Toward Zero Deaths vision in mind and with the FHWA requirements for target setting. While the world finds itself in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and from a transportation perspective the resulting impacts to traffic volumes and crashes, none of us know just what the transportation impact will be for this target-setting period. So far, the reduced volumes of traffic (at one point several locations had reductions up to 50% of historical volumes) have translated to reduced crashes, injuries, and fatalities, yet in less proportion. The STSP (SHSP) process for renewing Colorado’s vision, mission, targets, and strategies considered the input of hundreds of stakeholders reviewing Colorado crash data, Colorado’s current transportation safety climate, and actions steps possible to make progress in improving safety. Many influencing factors were considered during the plan development process.
2022 Comments:
Colorado did not meet or make significant progress toward achieving its safety performance targets for calendar year 2019.
Safety Performance Target Assessment
PLEASE NOTE: Each State’s safety performance target assessment is based on its own State-specific target methodology and program philosophy. Therefore, conclusions should not be drawn based only on the information in the Safety Performance Target Assessment Summary table. For example, the State may have set aggressive targets, and not met those targets, while another State may have set more easily attainable targets, and met those targets. FHWA understands that each State’s safety program is unique and therefore does not prescribe a methodology for States to set targets. States have the flexibility to use the methodology they deem most appropriate when setting their safety performance targets.
Performance Measure | 2016-2020 Target | 2016-2020 Actual | 2014-2018 Baseline | Met Target? | Better Than Baseline? | Met or Made Significant Progress? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of Fatalities | 618.0 | 621.4 | 584.6 | NO | NO | NO |
Rate of Fatalities | 1.140 | 1.184 | 1.126 | NO | NO | |
Number of Serious Injuries | 3,271.0 | 3,100.6 | 3,193.8 | YES | N/A | |
Rate of Serious Injuries | 6.075 | 5.896 | 6.174 | YES | N/A | |
Number of non-motorized fatalities and non-motorized serious injuries | 670.0 | 542.4 | 554.8 | YES | N/A |