Free Traffic Safety Evaluation Service for Your City

Traffic crashes that cause injury, death, and property damage can be reduced by improving local enforcement and engineering practices and programs.

Tech Transfer's Traffic Safety Evaluation (TSE) service will review your city's or county's traffic safety conditions, programs and needs, as well as provide recommendations for developing and implementing new strategies to improve local traffic safety.

A request for the TSE service can be initiated by either a local public works or police department. We will schedule a two-day visit to your city or county on a first-come, first-served basis. Our team of experienced safety evaluators will find ways to improve:

• Safety and traffic operations at high crash locations
• Bicycle and pedestrian safety in neighborhoods and at schools
• Traffic control signs, signals and markings
• Traffic enforcement
• Traffic safety record management
• Training and resource availability

For more information or to schedule a traffic safety evaluation, send an e-mail to tse-info@techtransfer.berkeley.edu.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

For general information on traffic safety issues and sample solutions for common traffic safety problems, please see:

• Resources & References
• Common Problems & Solutions

The information on these pages has been compiled from previous Traffic Safety Evaluations conducted over the past few years.

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How is an Evaluation Conducted?

Tech Transfer has been offering evaluations to California cities and counties for more than 20 years.

Upon assignment to a community the team reviews available safety data and performs a "windshield" survey of roadway safety conditions.

They then meet with key police and engineering staff to identify local issues, visit problem areas, review current programs, benchmark your community against similar ones in California, help identify problem areas, and recommend solutions.

After a second staff wrap-up meeting, the team prepares a written report to document findings, next-steps and recommendations, best practices and other useful information.

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What kinds of safety issues can the evaluation address?

The range of expertise of the TSE evaluators is broad. We match the team to your community's interests and needs.

Some issues that communities have asked our engineering evaluator to help them with include:

• high-crash intersections
• Poor sight-distance
• Speeding problems
• Speed-limit positing
• Red-light running
• The need for additional traffic control devices (signals, signs, markings, striping)
• Roadway channelizations
• Traffic circulation
• Access management
• Traffic calming
• Pedestrian safety
• Bicycle safety and planning
• School safety
• Volume and speed surveys
• Traffic record issues

Some issues that communities have asked our enforcement evaluator to help them with include:

• Strategies for DUI
• Hit-and-run
• Speeding
• Vehicle impounds
• Identifying enforcement improvements
• Effectiveness of local enforcement resources
• Strategies for resource deployment
• Effective use of traffic record systems
• Improved reporting of collision factors
• Establishing safety & enforcement goals
• Public relations
• Use of volunteers
• Police personnel training

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Who are the TSE Evaluators?

Each evaluation is conducted by a team of one engineer and one enforcement evaluator, as assigned by the Tech Transfer Project Manager, Ted Chira-Chavala.

Michelle DeRobertis, P.E., Senior Transportation Planner/Bicycle Program Manager, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, is an experienced transportation engineer specializing in bicycle, pedestrian, and bus transportation. She has extensive experience working as a consultant in bicycle planning and design, and was project manager for numerous major bicycle facility design studies for California cities and counties.

Nazir Lalani, P.E., is currently a Deputy Director with the Ventura County Transportation Department in California. In this capacity, he is responsible for Traffic Operations, Transportation Planning, Storm Damage Repairs, Encroachment Permits and Public Transportation. He has also held local government positions with the City of Ventura and Santa Barbara County, California, the City of Lakewood, Colorado, the City of Phoenix, Arizona and the Greater London Council in England. Nazir is an instructor for three courses offered by the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley: "Fundamentals of Traffic Engineering," "Access Management and Site Design," and "Roundabout Design."

Nazir obtained his Bachelors Degree from the University of Exeter in Devon, England and Masters Degree from Arizona State University. He is currently a licensed Engineer in Colorado and California. Nazir has served as chair of various ITE committees including the Pedestrian and Bicycle Task Force and the Public Agency Council. He served as an elected officer of ITE on the District 6 Board, the International Board of Direction and as ITE's 1999 International President. Most recently, Nazir was a recipient of ITE's Burton W. Marsh Award in 2001 and ITE Coordinating Council Special Recognition Award in 2004.

Ed Ruzak, P.E. has more than 35 years of practical traffic engineering experience for both public agencies (Caltrans, County of San Mateo) and private firms with national consulting practice (JHK & Associates and ASL Consulting Engineers).

He is currently president of his own firm, Ed Ruzak & Associates, specializing in street, highway, and transportation studies and litigation consultations. Areas of special interest include traffic safety, bicycle facility design, traffic impacts, circulation and corridor studies.

He is a frequent speaker and lecturer for professional meetings, a member of the ITS Tech Transfer short course, "Fundamentals of Traffic Engineering," and an active participant in ITE, currently a "reviewer" for ITE of the new Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

John Turner is a sergeant at the City of Ventura Police Department. He has extensive experience in traffic enforcement, collision investigation, and innovative traffic safety programs. His prior experience included a police officer at the City of Santa Barbara and consultant practices in collision reconstruction and Vehicle Code application in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. He has won numerous awards for police work since 1984.

Don Uelmen has 34 years of traffic safety and traffic enforcement experience at the California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. At the CHP, he has worked at the Headquarters, San Francisco Area Office, and Contra Costa Office. His other positions have included work in traffic enforcement and safety at NHTSA as well as a safety consultant.

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What cities are saying about the Traffic Safety Evaluation

"The evaluators were professional and had an expert working knowledge of the issues at hand"

"The evaluator's work was exceptional. Everyone was very impressed with the work"

"The evaluators' skills were excellent. They were both very knowledgeable and used their extensive background experience to evaluate issues we presented"

"The evaluators brought a breadth of knowledge and prior experience to the traffic safety evaluation"

"My community has learned so much from this evaluation. It exceeded our expectations and has convinced some of us we didn't know what solutions we wanted"

"The evaluators are a wealth of knowledge and experience. Their ability to analyze data and project trends is outstanding"

"We were very impressed with the overall product and feel that they did an excellent job"

"This was an extremely valuable tool to assist us in our traffic safety responsibilities"

"It was great to have an outside set of eyes examine the problems"

"They confirmed some of my thoughts about our perceived problem areas and provided good information that will help my unit reduce the number of collisions we respond to"

"We intend to start implementing the recommendation this fall"

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How to Request a Free Evaluation

The number of evaluations we can do each year is limited by funding from OTS. Communities with the highest crash rates (top quartile) for their population cohort are given priority.

Please email tse-info@techtransfer.berkeley.edu.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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