The Southern Georgia Regional Commission and Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization have produced and released the annual VLMPO Crash Report for Fiscal Year 2017.  Produced since 2007, this report is available to the public, community leaders and law enforcement agencies to determine how to improve safety for all users on roadways within the Valdosta Urbanized Area. The Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization is a multi-county, federally funded transportation planning agency for the Valdosta Urbanized Area. The VLMPO conducts long range and short range transportation planning in areas including: highways and bridges, public transit, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and freight movement, among other areas. This report can be found on our website at http://www.sgrc.us/data---resources.html.
 
This crash report is modeled after goals listed in the 2016 Georgia Highway Safety Plan and covers crash data from the past five years, 2012 to 2016. It analyzes trends for crash characteristics such as injuries, fatalities, manners of collision, contributing factors, and others. Speeding, alcohol, and use of safety equipment are among the many significant contributing crash factors that this report addresses. In addition to vehicular crashes, bicycle, pedestrian, and motorcycle crashes, injuries, and fatalities over the past 5 years are discussed. The top twenty crash locations for both the City of Valdosta and Lowndes County are mapped and detailed in this report.
 
Between 2012 and 2016, Lowndes County experienced 16,239 crashes. There was an increase in the number of crashes that occurred per year from 3,183 crashes in 2012 to 3,713 crashes in 2016. Fatal crashes rose from 11 in 2012 to 18 in 2016. 55% of crashes were due to either following too close or failure to yield, and a significant majority of crashes occurred under wet road conditions.
 
Finally, new MPO Safety Performance Measures required by the Federal Highway Administration under the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) are introduced in this report. These safety performance measures include number of fatalities, fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, number of serious injuries, serious injuries per 100 million VMT, and number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries. These performance measures will be revised with goals developed in coordination with the Georgia Department of Transportation before February 2018.