Blogging is a new "feature" of the internet. It allows an easier way to update web pages and gives a "log" type setup with some automatic features. This is the second Blog I've created, the first can be seen here.

 
If you haven't signed up for our discussion list, you're missing out on some interesting conversation about St. Bernard Parish. Currently the focus is on law enforcement, particularly with regards to traffic enforcement.

Among the members of the discussion list, there is a perception that St. Bernard is not a safe place as far as traffic is concerned. Some of the comments mentioned traffic laws that are not being enforced.

Since we know perception does not always tell the truth, I went looking for some accident statistics and found them compiled by LSU. You can get accident statistics for the state going back to 1996 by visiting the LSU E.J. Ourso College of Business website here.

I only looked at some information for 2003 and the record is mixed.

Among parishes of a similar population as St. Bernard, 20000-50000 licensed drivers, St. Bernard ranks well when comparing the number of accidents per driver. However, St. Bernard fails based upon the number of vehicle miles travelled (I haven't delved into things enough to figure out how they determine the number of vehicle miles travelled).

*Side note here: I realize that a cutoff had to be made some where, but I wonder if 50000 was a good number. Among the 17 parishes St. Bernard is grouped with, we are tied with Iberia parish with 47000 licensed drivers. Acadia and Vermilion are tied for third place with 37000 licensed drivers. With 10000 licensed drivers separating the two top groups, perhaps we should have been matched with the 50000-100000 group. The separation would have only been 6000 instead. With that said, I'm going to compare St. Bernard with Iberia, Jefferson, and Plaquemines.

I would include Orleans Parish, but I don't trust the numbers reported. There is just no way Orleans Parish only had 32 accidents in a 12 month period. Has to be some serious under-reporting going on there.

Looking at raw numbers, St. Bernard doesn't do too bad against Iberia. We've got 60 less accidents, about 200 less injuries and only half as many fatalities. When you start extropolating those numbers based on number of drivers and number of vehicle miles travelled, it starts to look ugly.

Among drivers, we still beat out Iberia in injuries with 980 to 1090. But when you look at vehicle miles travelled (VMT), St. Bernard does a crash and burn. We have 139 injuries per 100,000 VMT to put us at number one on the danger list among the 17 parished within the 20000-50000 drivers range. Thankfully, the ranking drops to number 9 on fatalities per 100,000 VMT.

Comparing St. Bernard with Jefferson and Plaquemines puts us just about even with Jefferson. At about 80 less accidents per 100,000 drivers, we would have 12.9 fatalities to Jefferson's 12.3.

Plaquemines has 30000 less licensed drivers than St. Bernard which translates into less accidents all around, recording 93 accidents in 2003. Extrapolating the numbers puts Plawuemines twice as safe as St. Bernard.

I think the overall big picture to look at is that St. Bernard is not much different than Jefferson in terms of drivers. The safety record for both parishes is about the same, it is only raw numbers that makes Jefferson look worse. But on a per capita scale, the two parishes are neck and neck.

What I think would really help with getting some meaning out of this report is to see the actual numbers for Orleans Parish. And I would also like to know how they calculate the number of VMT per parish.

Be good to yourself,
Westley Annis
westley@da-parish.com
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posted by Westley at 3/01/2004 01:13:24 AM