Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


It’s Rural Road Safety Awareness Week.

The third week of July is Rural Road Safety Awareness Week. The National Center for Rural Road Safety promotes topics that raise awareness around road safety in the rural context.

This year’s theme is “Life Between the Lines: Preventing Rural Roadway Departures”.

Roadway departures (aka lane departures) on the rural road network account for one-third of traffic fatalities. The Federal Highway Administration defines a roadway departure crash as a crash that h occurs after a vehicle crosses an edge line or a center line, or otherwise leaves the traveled way.

Every year nearly 12,000 people die when their vehicle leaves its lane on a rural road according to the FHWA – that translates to 30 people per day.

More information is available in the provided links.