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Vermont crash fatalities fell in 2024, VTrans says; speed and lane‑departure remain top factors
Summary
At an April 30 Senate Transportation hearing, Mandy Shatney of the Vermont Agency of Transportation presented 2023–24 crash data showing statewide declines in overall and impaired fatalities but increases in speed‑related and lane‑departure deaths, and described online dashboards and data tools used for safety planning.
Mandy Shatney, data section manager in the operations and safety bureau at the Vermont Agency of Transportation, told the Senate Transportation Committee on April 30 that the state recorded 71 traffic fatalities in 2023 and 59 in 2024, and that the department is posting expanded dashboards and story maps to help officials and the public examine crash trends.
Shatney said impaired‑driving fatalities fell in 2024 and that unbelted occupant fatalities have fallen in recent years, but that several concerning trends remain: speed‑related fatalities rose by about 50 percent, pedestrian fatalities increased 20 percent (from five in 2023 to six in 2024), and lane‑departure crashes accounted for a large share of fatal collisions. “The two things that I want to point out are our speed‑related fatalities increased by 50% and our pedestrian fatalities increased by 20,” Shatney said.
Why it matters: The Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) feeds crash data to the state highway safety office, which uses the information to prioritize enforcement, education and grant funding. Shatney said her unit’s dashboards were built to align with Vermont’s 2022–2026 Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and can be used to drill down by month, county, vehicle type and critical emphasis area.
Key figures and findings presented to the committee included: 71 fatalities in 2023 and 59 in 2024; a 67 percent decline in motorcyclist fatalities year‑to‑year in the single comparison Shatney cited (18 to 6); an overall decline in impaired fatalities over recent years though the long‑term trend remains elevated; and that more than half of occupant fatalities who had the opportunity to wear a seat belt were unbelted, Shatney said. She also highlighted that many initial fatal‑crash notifications come with substantial unknowns and that it can take up to 90 days for full police crash reports to arrive and be finalized.
Committee discussion touched on uses of the data and possible follow‑up analyses. Senators and committee members asked about seasonality and local patterns, before‑and‑after evaluation of countermeasures such as rumble strips, and age‑based licensing questions. Shatney said the dashboards can filter by month and county, and that VTrans can run targeted before‑and‑after reports for specific projects. She pointed to a prior example in which center‑line treatment on a segment near Hartford was followed by an immediate reduction in fatalities.
On data quality and reporting, Shatney said VTrans sends weekly summaries based on the initial notifications from law enforcement and that the agency has been working with police to improve timeliness and completeness of crash reports. “We get the notification within hours of the crash, so we get a lot of unknowns,” she said, adding that the agency has offered trainings that resulted in roughly 30 law‑enforcement trainings statewide.
Shatney demonstrated the SHSP dashboards, a public crash query tool and two story maps (2022 and 2023) on the agency website. She identified county‑level crash rates and mapped fatal and injury crashes statewide, noting higher counts in more populous counties (for example, Chittenden) and elevated fatal‑crash rates in some rural counties (Rutland, Windham, Lamoille, Franklin, Orleans and Essex in the visual she showed).
What the committee asked VTrans to do next: committee members requested additional breakdowns normalized to population or registered drivers for age groups, a comparison of road types (interstate vs. state highways vs. town roads), and targeted analyses of treatments (rumble strips, center‑line installations) in specific corridors. Shatney said VTrans can produce those reports and that some infrastructure layers (for example, a consistent statewide crosswalk GIS layer) are still being improved.
The session closed with Shatney inviting committee members to use the public tools and to submit data requests through VTrans’ online request form. “We have a lot of tools in here if you want to pop in and poke around,” she said.
Sources: Presentation and live Q&A with Mandy Shatney, Vermont Agency of Transportation (April 30, 2025).
