South Carolina 2007 Five Percent Report

This report is in response to the Federal requirement that each state describe at least 5 percent of its locations currently exhibiting the most severe highway safety needs, in accordance with Sections 148(c)(1)(D) and 148(g)(3)(A), of Title 23, United States Code. Each state's report is to include potential remedies to the hazardous locations identified; estimated costs of the remedies; and impediments to implementation of the remedies other than costs. The reports included on this web site represent a variety of methods utilized and various degrees of road coverage. Therefore, this report cannot be compared with the other reports included on this Web site.

Protection from Discovery and Admission into Evidence—Under 23 U.S.C. 148(g)(4) information collected or compiled for any purpose directly relating to this report shall not be subject to discovery or admitted into evidence in a Federal or State court proceeding or considered for other purposes in any action for damages arising from any occurrence at a location identified or addressed in the reports.

Additional information, including the specific legislative requirements, can be found in the guidance provided by the Federal Highway Administration,
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/fiveguidance.htm.

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South Carolina
Highway Safety Improvement Program Reporting
"5 Percent Report" - 2007 Report

Currently, SCDOT maintains over 42,000 miles of roadway in the state of South Carolina. This comprises nearly 65% of all roadways in the state. Furthermore, over the last 10 years, SC has averaged over 100,000 crashes a year, including approximately 1000 fatalities each year. Of the 100,000 crashes, over 90% occur on state-maintained roadways, with nearly 97% of all fatal crashes also occurring on state roadways.

At present, South Carolina does not have the capability of locating crashes on all public roadways; however, through a recent partnership with the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, a project is underway to begin the process of capturing the crash data electronically on all public roads through the use of a GIS based system. Therefore, it is apparent, based on the information above that the majority of road locations or features throughout the state exhibiting a severe safety need likely occur on a state roadway. As a result, the location would be included in our current HSIP process and analysis.

In the HSIP, one methodology used to identify locations with severe safety needs is based on crash severity. This analysis includes a severity rate formula based on the Equivalent Property Damage Only (EPDO) method and uses the indices of 12 for fatal crashes and 3 for injury crashes. These locations are prioritized based upon MVM (million vehicle miles traveled) for road sections and MEV (million entering vehicles) for intersections. Locations are compared in similar sets for continuity

The locations listed on the accompanying attachment are the highest 5 % of the locations as identified in the state's HSIP. Crash data used for the analysis of these locations is from January 1st, 2004 to April 30th, 2007. These locations include areas where either multiple fatalities were reported or locations with the highest severity rate.

Highway Segments/Intersections Exhibiting the Most Severe Safety Needs (7/1/06 Thru 6/30/07)

Location		Potential Remedies	Estimated Cost	Implementation Impediments	Comments
SC 105	Cherokee	Flatten Curve Signing and Marking Revisions	$ 4,000.00	None	Signing and Marking changes have been implemented
S-580	Darlington	Flatten Curve Signing and Marking Revisions	$ 4,000.00	None	Signing and Marking changes have been implemented
S-47 and S-77	Lexington	Reconstruct intersection	$500,000.00	Cost, R/W impacts, Environmental Impacts	Possible Hydrology issues
S-35 and S-135	Oconee	Realign intersection	$1,500,000.00	Cost, R/W impacts, Environmental Impacts	Recent development in SE quadrant prevents proposed design
US 15	Sumter	Provide Turn Lanes	$1,400,000.00	Cost, R/W impacts	Multiple closely spaced intersections. 3-lane section will provide needed turn lanes
US 17A and S-9	Berkeley	Install Traffic Signal	$ 60,000.00	Cost	Significant pattern of left turn crashes from side street initiated study.