State Highway Safety Report (2021) - Washington
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 when establishing safety performance targets. 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://highways.dot.gov/safety/hsip/reporting.
More information and resources on Safety Performance Management are available at https://highways.dot.gov/safety/hsip/spm/safety-performance-management-safety-pm-overview.
All State data used to populate the State Highway Safety Reports for 2021 are available for download at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/reporting/state/tpm_dashboard_data.zip.
Additional Comments
2022 Comments:
WSDOT set targets based on a 2030 goal of zero fatal and serious crashes. WSDOT recognizes the aspirational aspects of this method of target setting. In setting this target, WSDOT feels that it can communicate the need to address crash reduction throughout the state and has had success in discussion with the Legislator and traffic safety commissioners. A more realistic target setting method would be to set increasing fatal and serious crashes but questions the message this sends to the public on road safety. The target rate for fatalities input by NHTSA does not appear to be correct. It has been verified by WTSC and NHTSA to be 0.730 based on an amended submittal by WTSC in August 2021.
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 | 2017-2021 Target | 2017-2021 Actual | 2015-2019 Baseline | Met Target? | Better Than Baseline? | Met or Made Significant Progress? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of Fatalities | 444.1 | 576.8 | 545.4 | No | No | No |
Rate of Fatalities | 0.724 | 0.974 | 0.888 | No | No | |
Number of Serious Injuries | 1,807.0 | 2,412.6 | 2,206.2 | No | No | |
Rate of Serious Injuries | 2.944 | 4.078 | 3.594 | No | No | |
Number of non-motorized fatalities and non-motorized serious injuries | 472.1 | 595.8 | 576.6 | No | No |