City of Midland Press Release
The City of Midland's Transportation Division has released its 2014 Traffic Crash Report, which contains data regarding traffic crashes that occurred on public roadways last calendar year. The report also includes traffic counts from throughout the year at all signalized intersections, at a large number of mid-block locations along major roadways, and at various other special locations as needed to respond to specific complaints or to support city-initiated projects.
City officials saw the following trends in 2014:
- The total number of crashes in the City of Midland increased 14 percent from 3,520 to 4,013. This is after officials saw a decrease from 3,723 crashes in 2012 to 3,520 in 2013.
- Both the number of fatalities and injuries due to accidents increased from 2013 to 2014, with an increase from 20 to 24 fatalities on city roads and an increase from 1,120 to 1,284 injuries, respectively. The fatalities figure does not include one fatality that occurred on private property within city limits.
- When taking into account the amount of traffic that passes through intersections, the Longview Avenue and Belmont Street intersection had 2.8 crashes per million vehicles entering that intersection. The second highest crash rate per million entering vehicles in 2014 was 2.2 at the intersection of the Andrews Highway north service road and Loop 250.
- Traffic volume counts taken in 2014 indicate an approximate 5.74 percent average increase in traffic volume throughout the City of Midland compared to the 2013 counts. In the previous year, engineers saw a 2.35 percent increase in overall traffic from 2012.
Traffic volumes provided in the annual crash report typically represent one 24-hour period of data collection that occurred during that year. Due to the variations in daily traffic patterns, great caution should be exercised in determining trends by comparing counts between multiple years at any one location.
City officials will continue to study and monitor all intersections listed in the 2014 Annual Traffic Crash Report and implement any changes or additions to existing traffic control devices or intersection geometrics as necessary.
