Wednesday, August 20th, 2025 at Noon MDT / 2pm EDT
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Safety vs. Safety: Understanding and Overcoming Conflicts between Street Safety and Fire and Emergency Response
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In cities across the US, attempts to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians are coming into conflict with fire and emergency response priorities. In this webinar, Zachary Lamb, Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, will discuss recent research to better understand conflicts between street safety measures and emergency response, and how such conflicts can be avoided or resolved.
The webinar will include findings from the research; discussion of the intertwined physical, institutional, and cultural factors that drive conflicts between street safety and emergency response; and discussion of strategies deployed in cities across the country to overcome these conflicts, including designing protected bike lanes to accommodate emergency response vehicles and shifting the mission of fire departments to include a prevention approach to street safety.
Upcoming Webinars
Tuesday, August 26th, 2025 at Noon MDT / 2pm EDT
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What Can Police Stop Data Tell Us About Traffic Safety?
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Across the country, police traffic stops are touted as a tool for improving road safety—but not all stops are equal in impact. From DUI enforcement to minor equipment violations, the behaviors targeted vary widely, and so do their impacts on traffic safety.
In response to growing concerns about policing practices, many jurisdictions have created detailed police stop databases. These rich data sources were primarily designed to examine demographic disparities—but what if they could also help us better understand and prevent serious and fatal crashes?
In this webinar, SafeTREC’s Liza Lutzker will share research using the confidential version of California’s police stop database, which includes stop narratives and locations. As the first research team with access to this data, we’re developing innovative methods to categorize stops by traffic safety relevance—helping us answer a critical question: Are traffic stops aligned with the behaviors that actually cause the most harm on our roads? Join us to explore how these datasets can be repurposed for traffic safety research, what insights they offer, and where their limitations lie.
Wednesday, September 17th, 2025 at Noon MDT / 2pm EDT
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Spatial and Temporal Shifts in Pedestrian Serious Injuries and Fatalities
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Pedestrian fatalities in the US increased over 83% between 2009 and 2022, substantially more than the 16% increase for vehicle occupant fatalities over the same period. Past research has identified important relationships between these recent pedestrian safety outcomes and street design (e.g., arterials and midblock crossings) and motor vehicle design (e.g., the higher prevalence and larger dimensions of light trucks). But how have pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries shifted in the larger geospatial context? This webinar explores how pedestrian safety issues have shifted on the urban/suburban/rural continuum, identifying a shift in pedestrian crashes toward the suburbs. Neighborhood-scale analyses also identify pedestrian fatality and serious injury concentrations around retail and other small-scale commercial establishments and public transit. This work harmonizes planning and engineering research into a more complete story of the recent pedestrian safety crisis.