SFMTA launches three-year motorcycle education campaign pilot

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which manages all surface transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), has launched a first of its kind Vision Zero education campaign targeting people who ride motorcycles. The campaign is funded by a US$188,267 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
November 25, 2016 Read time: 2 mins

The 4802 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which manages all surface transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), has launched a first of its kind Vision Zero education campaign targeting people who ride motorcycles. The campaign is funded by a US$188,267 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), through the 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

San Francisco is experiencing an increase in motorcycle usage. According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, there were 22,853 registered motorcycles in San Francisco in 2014, a 10 per cent increase over five years. With this increase, San Francisco has seen more motorcycle crashes resulting in injury and death. The Office of Traffic Safety database ranks San Francisco as having the highest fatal collision rate among California cities over 250,000 in population and fifth among all counties in the state. Nearly 20 percent of all traffic fatalities in San Francisco in 2015 involved motorcycles despite them accounting for a small fraction of total road users.

To stem these fatalities, the SFMTA will work in direct partnership with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) to implement a new citywide education campaign aimed at reducing and ending injuries and deaths among people who ride motorcycles.

As part of the city’s Vision Zero Education Strategy, this new campaign will be used to educate the targeted population and implement a spectrum of prevention measures intended to alter individual behaviours that most contribute to crashes, including unsafe speed, unsafe passing and DUI.

UTC

Related Content

  • September 2, 2015
    Speed cameras yield long-term safety benefits, IIHS study shows
    A speed-camera program in a large community near Washington, DC, has led to long-term changes in driver behaviour and substantial reductions in deaths and injuries, a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows. Automated speed enforcement is gradually becoming more common around the country but remains relatively rare, with only 138 jurisdictions operating such programs as of last month. According to IIHS, if all US communities had speed-camera programs like the one IIHS studied in
    Read More
  • March 28, 2017
    ACRS calls for Australian Government to commit to eliminating road trauma
    The Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) has released its 2017 ACRS Submission to Federal Parliamentarians - The way forward to reduce road trauma, outlining what it says is Australia’s stalled progress against National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020 targets for death and injury reduction. According to ACRS, road trauma is one of the highest ranking public health issues Australia faces , with 1,300 deaths and 37,000 injuries per year, and rising. The causes and consequences of road trauma contin
    Read More
  • October 5, 2016
    Columbian capital launches new drink driving campaign
    Officials in Bogotá, Colombia have initiated a strong mass media campaign aimed at reducing drink driving, a frequent cause of road crashes in the Colombian capital. With support from Vital Strategies and the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), the city’s campaign will remind motorists of the great danger, both to themselves and others, caused by drink driving. Last year, 447 road crashes occurred in Bogotá, an increase from 427 in 2014, mainly due to drink driving. So f
    Read More
  • March 10, 2015
    US public transportation records passenger numbers highest for 58 years
    Americans took 10.8 billion trips on public transportation in 2014, which is the highest annual public transit ridership number in 58 years, according to a report by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). “In 2014, people took a record 10.8 billion trips on public transportation -- the highest annual ridership number in 58 years,” said Phillip Washington, APTA chair and CEO and general manager of the Regional Transportation District in Denver. “Some public transit systems experienced all-ti
    Read More

Highlighted Content