Scott Stanford:

Hi, everybody. It's me, Scott Stanford. Welcome to The Infrastructors. It's the premier podcast for engaging conversations with influential thought leaders in AI, tech, government policy, and smart city innovation. Today's guest, you're going to love it, the Deputy Director of the California Office of Traffic Safety, Timothy Weisberg.

Tim, listen, thanks for spending some time with us here on The Infrastructors. First thing off, California, of course, one of the most, if not the most, vehicle traveled states in the U.S.A. Always known for the traffic, especially there in LA. Given the case, the California Office of Traffic Safety has a vital job. Tell our audience about the mission right now.

Timothy Weisberg:

Thanks for having me. Traffic is a big thing around here. They say, in LA, it takes you an hour to get from LA to LA. It's a real thing. Our mission is to effectively administer traffic safety grants that deliver innovative programs and help to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries on our roadways. We receive federal funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for behavioral safety programs and enforcement programs all with that goal. Our role is to create a safety culture in California where everyone is traveling safely on our roads and that everyone will go safely. The harsh reality is we're experiencing a crisis right now on our roadways, there's no way around it, and our collective focus must be tackling the issue head-on with urgency. We have to think in bolder, more innovative ways to save lives. We're doing everything to implement those types of safety measures, to reach our mission of eliminating deaths and serious injuries on our roadways, but we have a lot of work to do.

Scott Stanford:

You mentioned those high levels of fatalities and traffic incidents. It's been on an upward trend for a couple of years, I guess coinciding with the pandemic. Now, in 2021, the Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that over 42,000 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. That was the most significant number of fatalities since around 2005 and the largest year-over-year percentage increase since they instituted their present system for recording fatalities in 1975. Has your agency noticed any different travel patterns and behaviors post pandemic right now? Anything that is noticeably different?

Timothy Weisberg:

We are back to pre-pandemic levels in terms of traffic, but with more people working from home, the patterns have shifted. The traffic is more prominent in the afternoon, and lasts longer in the evening. We have less of those traffic peaks in the morning hours, but unfortunately, even with traffic returning, we're still seeing people speeding and not changing their other reckless behaviors. That really reared its ugly head during the onset of the pandemic. Impaired driving, not wearing seat belts, speeding.

Going back to what you said about the nearly 43,000 people in the U.S. that died, these are people that are never going to see their loved ones again, and it's really beyond tragic that nearly 10% of all those traffic deaths happened on California roads. More than 4,000. It's more than stats here. These are real people. We need to treat this as the crisis it really is. This shouldn't be acceptable as the status quo or the cost of traveling. Really startling numbers. The empty roads certainly tempted drivers to put the pedal to the metal, especially if you're around LA and you're like, "Wow, the roads are open, it's usually traffic here."

Scott Stanford:

"Let's go." Right, right.

Timothy Weisberg:

The behaviors haven't changed, the traffic's back, and people still want to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. It's concerning, to say the least.

Scott Stanford:

You mentioned some of those different, whether it's seat belts or distracted driving, what are the most significant safety issues on the California roads today that you see? Is it the distracted drivers? Is it drunk driving? Which I'm going to assume, as a layman, that one of those two are up there at the top, whether it's distracted driving and texting or driving under the influence. Got to be one of the two. No?

Timothy Weisberg:

Yes. Impaired driving and speeding. Distracted driving still accounts, nationally too, around 10%, but that's also harder to prove. There's a variety of distractions. People may not always be honest if they were on their phone or not. Speeding and impaired driving collectively account for more than half of all traffic deaths. Those are the two big ones. Both are dangerous. Both result in countless lives lost every single day and every single year. People are just driving way too fast, and it's just simple science. The faster you go in the event of a crash, the more damage it's going to cause.

Scott Stanford:

I hear you, man. You talk about that and, really, I noticed the left lane in LA it's like the Autobahn these days, which is not a good thing unless you're having a race car event throughout the city. You touched on it just now but why are people speeding? Why is there so much speeding when you know it's dangerous? You know if you get into an accident at high speeds, the odds of you coming out alive are a lot slimmer than if you're going 55, 45, whatever it is. Why are people speeding so much?

Timothy Weisberg:

Great question. I think it's people that are in a rush. We live in a 24-hour news cycle. If my computer doesn't start within five seconds, I think it's slow. We've been spoiled with everything. We need everything now, everything needs to be immediate. We need to get places as fast as possible. Also, just the culture too. You see commercials, you see movies, and it's all about speeding. It's all about how fast a car can go, and it's also road design. A lot of these roads, these thoroughfares, are designed to move traffic as quickly as possible when you have other road users, bicyclists and pedestrians, that are going to be vulnerable in those spaces. It's a combination of the culture, people thinking that they can do it safely, and this idea that we're always in a rush, we have to get places and have things immediate in our lives.

Scott Stanford:

Tell us about California's Safe System approach. How is this being incorporated into everything you guys are doing? The Safe System approach.

Timothy Weisberg:

This is really critical. It started in the late 90s in Europe, and it's really come to fruition here. It's something we're embracing. It's a guiding principle. It's about taking a more holistic view of our transportation system. It's designing and operating the system that is more proactive versus reactive. It's accommodating for human vulnerabilities. Think of your bicyclists and pedestrians, people outside of vehicles, and mistakes. We're not perfect. I'm not perfect, far from it. Nobody here is perfect. We're going to make mistakes, it's going to happen. We're going to make mistakes behind the wheel. We're going to think we are changing lanes and look in our blind spot and suddenly the car is there.

Scott Stanford:

Yeah, crazy.

Timothy Weisberg:

But it doesn't need to result in deadly and tragic consequences either. It shouldn't be a death sentence to make that mistake, so the system should be more forgiving. Minimize the severity of crashes so that when they do happen, they're not so serious and deadly. The Safe System approach also recognizes that in order to achieve this, to have this holistic approach, everybody needs to recognize their own role in making sure that we all go safely. This is literally everyone. Road users, whether you're driving, walking, biking, using mobility assistance devices, the managers of road infrastructure, so your engineers, and vehicle manufacturers, it's on them as well, to share this responsibility that getting from point A to point B safely. It should be everyone's top priority.

Scott Stanford:

Absolutely. It's funny, I often see these rubber tubes stretched across some roads. I understand the tubes really are there to count traffic. It's essential work, because it counts... Federally mandated, you got to do it. No getting around the need to do this stuff, but do you think the OTA would support the use of a more modern technology, like an AI-based vehicle recognition that really would do more than count vehicles and do it safely? It seems archaic. They would be able to do it from the side of the roadway as opposed to being in the roadway to count the cars.

Timothy Weisberg:

Absolutely. I think anything that'll streamline how you monitor traffic and anything that improves data collection is a win-win. A lot of local agencies and even the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, they're piloting projects that are focused on bicycle and pedestrian traffic counts. That's a lot of systems on signals and off the roadway that are trying to count that foot traffic. That's crucial, to identify those needs for those road users who are not behind the wheel. You get a more concrete account of how much foot traffic or bicycle traffic there really is, and that helps you justify the type of design you're doing for other road users and not just drivers.

Scott Stanford:

You touched on it a second ago about the automakers needing to come up and make sure people get from point A to point B safely. From my experience, and I have one of those cars with all the crazy safety features, they're so technologically advanced. All that tech is cool, the entertainment centers, the Bluetooth connectivity, all the other bells and whistles. A lot of that stuff's always going off, beeping, flashing. Do you guys consider that also some distractions as we drive? My car, if I'm backing up even, it hits that automatic break and it almost sends you through the back of the seat sometimes. It's great to have it there, but not only does it almost give you a heart attack, it gives you a little whiplash as well. Some of those safety devices can also, in my opinion, you tell me if I'm wrong, can be a little bit distracting to the drivers.

Timothy Weisberg:

A lot of bells and whistles, but I think it's about educating the public on what their function is and that it's there to protect you, not only as a driver, but also passengers and everyone around you. I think as people familiarize themselves with it, they'll get a better understanding and it will become less of a distraction. Our concern is those touchscreen monitors in new cars. They're like flat screen TVs that are right next to you. The old days it used to be turn knobs, and at least it's like if you're fiddling with the radio, you're kind of still looking up at the road. With these touchscreens, you got to look down and at the screen and away from the road, and that's a big distraction. I think those beeps and flashes, for a lot of those driver assistance technologies, it's really crucial and really, back to the Safe System approach, accommodating for those mistakes. It's that added layer of protection.

Scott Stanford:

One of the safety features on my car that I think is insane, I'll play with it once in a while for about 10 seconds, where you're in a cruise control and you could let go of the steering wheel and your car will keep you inside the lane and make those turns. I just think that it's so dangerous, but I guess it comes in handy if for some reason you fall asleep for a second, your car's going to continue to keep you on the road and, then, it alerts you, "Hey, you got to put your hands back on the wheel." A lot of that stuff is just so futuristic, and it's going to be amazing to see what we have five years down the road. I wanted to ask you, in California, back to the fatalities, a recent increase in DUI fatalities, does that even cause more concern for you folks, the DUI fatalities? How do you prevent this?

Timothy Weisberg:

1,159 people were killed in alcohol related crashes in California in 2020. That went up 20% from 2019, and across the U.S., it's about 32 people every day. One person every 45 minutes. It's just so hard to wrap your head around that. Still, ride hailing services... The stigma associated with drunk driving, everybody knows it's the wrong thing to do. People don't like hearing it on the news or, "Shame on you for doing that. How could you do something like that?" But it's still a problem. Also, drug impaired driving too, it's still getting people to understand how certain medications and cannabis affects them and getting a better understanding on that front, on the level of impairment, which is different from alcohol. It's a huge concern.

Back to the technology, the Infrastructure Investments in Jobs Act, the big multi-year infrastructure bill they were talking about that passed last year, is going to make it a requirement to have this detection technology that prevents people from starting the car if they're impaired in the next three years on all new vehicles. That's a game changer. About 9,000 lives could be saved, just from that technology.

Scott Stanford:

When you say that while they're impaired, the car will not start, does that include any impairment, whether it's gummies or cannabis, or are we just talking about alcohol here?

Timothy Weisberg:

We're just talking about alcohol. The tricky part with the gummies and the edibles and cannabis is that it's not like alcohol where it's like, "Okay, you're this weight, you're this body type, you've had this much food, this is probably going to be your level of impairment based on how many drinks you have." If you use more, you could build up a tolerance. The level of THC in your system doesn't necessarily correlate to impairment, so it's a little bit trickier with cannabis and even some of those medications that make you sleepy, make you drowsy. That's where it's a little bit more complicated, but I'm sure as this technology grows there, there will be a way. It's that proactive approach that literally you're preventing somebody from doing something awful before they even get in the car. That's a game changer.

Scott Stanford:

Absolutely, man. Listen, Tim, before you go, tell me about the California Go Safely campaign.

Timothy Weisberg:

It's our all-encompassing campaign encouraging people to make going from point A to point B a top priority. Getting everyone on board with the idea that we should be able to get places safely, it should be something we do every day. Less about the dangers that we face and that it shouldn't matter how you travel, but how you do it and doing so safely is top of mind. We started a new public service announcement focused on the Safe System approach, in that we are going to make mistakes and have these close calls that we experience, but the road must be safe for everyone. It's just an extra reminder of our responsibility to be alert and look out for others.

Scott Stanford:

Listen, let's hope these programs work, cut down on fatalities and accidents. Tim Weisberg, California Office of Highway Safety. Tim, thanks, man. Thanks for hanging out with us on The Infrastructors, and sorry about the Dodgers, my friend. Better luck next year.

Tim Weisberg. Thank you, Tim.

Timothy Weisberg:

Thank you.