Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Data Equity Vision Zero topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Legislators press MDOT and safety office on data gaps for pedestrian injuries and racial disparities
Summary
Committee members questioned state officials about a lack of nonfatal pedestrian injury data and limited visibility into how crashes affect people of color. Maryland officials said equity is a factor in corridor selection but acknowledged gaps in nonfatal injury reporting and called for continued health‑department partnerships and improved data.
Delegates pressed state transportation and highway safety officials on Jan. 16 about data gaps that make it hard to measure where pedestrian and bicycle injuries — especially nonfatal injuries — fall across racial and income groups.
“Some of the health‑impact data is just not available,” said a committee member who introduced the topic, noting studies showing higher pedestrian injury and death rates among African American, Latino and Native American populations. Tim Kearns, director of the Maryland Highway Safety Office, said the Highway Safety Office and SHA have undertaken detailed pedestrian crash analyses and that equity is one factor used in PSAP and VRU corridor selection, but acknowledged limits in current datasets for measuring nonfatal injuries and demographic details.
Motor Vehicle Administrator Kristi Neisser said Maryland’s fatal crash dashboard is updated daily and is intended to help planners and local partners, but nonfatal crash records and medical data are distributed across many systems and agencies. Neisser and Kearns said the Highway Safety Office has intentionally reached out to local health departments and metropolitan councils to improve local plan development and to identify communities most affected by serious crashes.
Officials said they would use the recently secured NHTSA data grant to strengthen crash‑data systems, and they recommended continued collaboration with local public‑health partners to assemble nonfatal injury information needed for equity‑focused planning. Kearns said such data and local health‑department involvement are central to targeting investments to communities with the highest harms.
