DC Department of Motor Vehicles
Metropolitan Police Department
Every year there are hundreds of thousands of dangerous driving violations in the District. As part of the Mayor’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic-related deaths, we have developed a statistical model to identify drivers who are at a high risk of being involved in a serious crash in the District. We are evaluating whether tailored messages to these drivers can curb red-light and speeding violations with the goal of decreasing their involvement in serious crashes. These findings may inform future policies and programs to reduce serious crashes in the District.
A DDOT employee installing a new 20 MPH speed limit sign.
(Credit: District Department of Transportation)
Why is this issue important in DC?
Every year, DC records dozens of driving-related fatalities, thousands of traffic crashes, and hundreds of thousands of driving violations.1 The District’s Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) system automatically takes photos and videos of a vehicle and license plate if drivers run red lights, roll through stop signs, or exceed speed limits. Evidence from multiple jurisdictions suggests that drivers with multiple violations are more likely to be involved in traffic crashes, and that a small number of drivers are responsible for a large number of crashes.2
What are we doing?
We used data from the District’s ATE systems to build a statistical model to predict a driver’s likelihood of being involved in a crash. We have randomly assigned a group of high-risk drivers to receive customized messages, which includes information about their vehicle and its previous violations and communicates that their vehicle is at higher risk of a crash than others. We will evaluate whether drivers who receive these messages have fewer red-light violations, speeding violations, and ultimately, crashes, compared to the group of high-risk drivers who do not receive the messages.
What have we learned?
We expect to share results in 2024.
What comes next?
The pilot will help the District learn whether proactive, customized messaging can change driver behavior and make our roads safer. The findings can be used to inform future policies and programs to reduce serious crashes in the District.
What is happening behind the scenes?
Privacy is always a concern when we’re working with any type of data. We have strong protections in place to make sure all data are protected when it’s shared with us, when we use it, and how we dispose of it. We also remove names and other personal identifiers from the data we’re working with and report information about groups of people, not individuals.
“Targeting messages to higher-risk drivers is an innovative approach to help us improve safety for all our roadway users, especially for our most vulnerable users – children and pedestrians.”