Top 14 hazardous actions that led to traffic crashes in Washtenaw County

It's national "don't run red lights week" (who knew?) and yesterday we learned 3.4 percent of traffic crashes in Ann Arbor between 2007 and 2009 were caused by a driver failing to stop on red.

Although that translates into 94 crashes, the percentage is still relatively small when considering the total number of crashes in the area. Countywide, a total of 580 red-light related crashes occurred from 2007-2009.

So what causes most crashes?

Many crashes are caused when drivers fail to stop in an assured distance.

Eric Bombery, a transportation planner with the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study, crunched the data for the hazardous actions that cause crashes. He cautioned that the figures represent drivers and not just crashes since there can be multiple drivers in a crash.

These categories represent the hazardous actions police note in crash reports - they don't delve into the causes of the actions, such as distracted driving (no more texting behind the wheel).

Not surprisingly, driving too fast, failing to yield and the inability to stop in an assured distance were factors in many crashes (not too many accidents resulting from driving too slow).

The following chart breaks down those hazardous actions when noted (some are unknown or weren't coded on accident reports).

Driver Hazardous Action 2007-2009
	2009	2008	2007
None	8098	8212	8876
Speed too fast	1479	1887	1604
Speed too slow	18	31	22
Failed to yield	1455	1483	1598
Disregard traffic control	244	270	317
Drove wrong way	12	21	17
Drove left of center	103	105	90
Improper passing	93	85	107
Improper lane use	335	376	394
Improper turn	160	200	192
Improper / no signal	17	31	17
Improper backing	266	256	291
Unable to stop in assured clear distance	2649	2705	3067
Other	569	565	631
Unknown	342	311	337
Reckless driving	93	88	106
Careless / negligent driving	351	389	440
Uncoded & errors	548	704	658