Tidbit Tuesday
Tuesday, November 05, 2019 at 4:44:06 PM
Tidbit Tuesday #5
Buckle up! It’s time to talk about Collision Diagrams.
Collision diagrams aren’t just dots on a map. They are a visual representation of historical crashes in the project area that provide enough detail for viewers to understand what type of crashes are occurring and where. They also allow the Traffic Engineer to identify trends and hot-spot problem areas that need to be addressed. Once established, the Traffic Engineer can use the collision diagram (and knowledge gained from reading the Officer’s Narrative in each crash report) to develop alternatives that mitigate the crash problems. At this point, the collision diagram can be recycled and used as a base layer with each conceptual alternative drawn on top of it to show potential safety benefits.
Additional information and an example collision diagram can be found on the LA DOTD website at: http://wwwsp.dotd.la.gov/Inside_LaDOTD/Divisions/Engineering/Traffic_Engineering/Publications/TEPR/v2files/CollisionDiagrams.pdf
BONUS! Collision diagrams are great for public meetings because they easily convey the proposed designs and show the safety benefits of each without forcing people to read a bunch of words or decipher tables of numbers, because who likes that? No one… No one likes that.
If you'd like to contact us with any comments, questions or tidbits of your own, please email TrafficEngineering@la.gov. Thanks for reading!