Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention

Motor vehicle injury includes crashes from 2-, 3-, and 4-wheel motorized vehicles, heavy trucks, and buses and includes crash-related injury to pedestrians and cyclists. 

In 2021, 31,555 Connecticut residents were treated in the emergency department for a crash-related injury, another 1,050 were admitted to the hospital for care, and an additional 328 died from their crash-related injury. The CDC estimated nearly $335 billion in medical, work loss, and quality of life costs were incurred from Connecticut crash-related injuries in 2020. 

It is too soon to tell how the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 may have contributed to changes in current trends for motor vehicle crashes and crash-related injuries. We do know the total number of injury records reported by Connecticut hospitals dropped 25% from 2019 (n=9 947) to 2020 (n=7,501). We also know there has been a substantial increase in male fatalities since 2019 that may correlate with increases in excessive speed-related stops during the pandemic.

Although social, environmental, and economic factors are not typically reported with injury outcome (making socioeconomic analysis difficult to conduct), it would be important to understand the underlying causes of this inequity to implement effective change. We do understand that in Connecticut, middle-aged non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics of all races carry the greatest burden of risk for both fatal and non-fatal crash-related injuries.
 

The Connecticut Department of Public Health recommends the following important steps to protect yourself, your family, and your community:

• Wear a seat belt on every trip; 

• Make sure children ride in properly installed car seats or booster seats appropriate for their size and age. For a fitting station near you, visit http://www.ctsafekids.org/child-passenger-safety/find-fitting-station/

• Wear bicycle and motorcycle helmets;

• Avoid using electronic devices or doing other activities in the car that distract you from driving;

• Don’t drink and drive or let others drive after drinking; and

• Walk facing oncoming traffic and wear highly visible reflective clothing if walking at night

 

Parents can make a major difference in keeping their teenagers safe by discussing the rules of the road, creating a parent-teen safe driving contract, monitoring their teen’s driving, and learning and enforcing Connecticut’s teen driving laws, which include restrictions on two of the most risky situations for young drivers; driving at night and driving with other teen passengers.

 

For the summary of Connecticut’s law on Graduated Driver Licensing, please click the link: SUMMARY: CONNECTICUT GRADUATED DRIVER LICENSING LAW

 

Child Passenger Safety

 

CDC Motor Vehicle Safety

 

Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant

 

The Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant (PHHSBG) provides all 50 states, the District of Columbia, 2 American Indian tribes, and 8 US territories with funding to address their unique public health needs in innovative and locally defined ways. This program gives grantees the flexibility to use funds to respond rapidly to emerging health issues and to fill funding gaps in programs that deal with leading causes of death and disability.

 

PHHSBG funding is currently provided to local health departments to address motor vehicle injury through activities designed to increase the correct use of safety belts/child safety seats and promote pedestrian safety. Strategies utilized include safety seat checkup events; training programs for parents, caregivers and health professionals; community awareness campaigns; and the development of community coalitions to identify local problems and implement environmental or policy changes to address these problems.

 

Transportation Safety and Injury Prevention Partner: Connecticut Department of Transportation

Highway Safety Office Annual Plans and Reports

The Connecticut Department of Transportation's Highway Safety Office (HSO) develops and updates annual highway safety plans and reports which can be accessed here. The Office coordinates highway safety initiatives for the priority areas of impaired driving, distracted driving, speed and aggressive driving, public information and education, bicycle and pedestrian safety, teen driving, highway safety-related legislation, police traffic services, Drug Evaluation and Classification Program (DECP), occupant protection, and child passenger safety.


Strategic Highway Safety Plan Executive Committee

Connecticut has worked diligently to address the issue of transportation-related injuries and deaths through strong leadership and public agency support of highway safety initiatives and partnerships with not-for-profits, private businesses, and Connecticut citizens. The Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) Executive Committee and Steering Committee—made up of these partners—have worked to reduce needless loss of life, and each life saved moves us in the direction of our long-term vision. The safety culture of these partners and Connecticut’s road users is vital to prevent future roadway fatalities and serious injuries (Excerpt from Executive Summary, CT SHSP, 2017-2021). To view the current SHSP, click here.

 

 

 

Links:

 

Motor Vehicle Injury in Connecticut - A Fact Sheet - 2021 Update

Motor vehicle crash injuries in the US: Costly but preventable - http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigs/pdf/2014-10-vitalsigns.pdf

 

Cost of deaths from motor vehicle crashes in Connecticut- http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/pdf/fatal_crash_cost/ct_costofcrashdeaths.pdf

 

Adult Seat Belt Use in the US: http://www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/hems/injury/seatbeltuse_factsheet.pdf

 

Child Passenger Safety: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/pdf/2014-02-vitalsigns.pdf

 

 

For more information, please call

The Office of Injury and Violence Prevention 

(860) 509-8251