2021 Crash Report & 2017-2021 5-Year Crash Trends

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WATS just released the 2021 Crash Report. Every year, WATS updates information on traffic crashes, fatalities, and serious injuries in Washtenaw County. The crash report evaluates factors including; crashes involving intersections, lane departures, pedestrians, bicyclists, impaired drivers, deer, speeding, young drivers, and older drivers. WATS provides this report as a resource for Washtenaw County residents, communities, and agencies seeking to make transportation safer. Local agencies need quality crash data to make transportation improvement decisions, improve users’ safety, and allocate funds. For example, municipalities use this data to identify locations for improvement using federal safety funds. Citizens and legislators also use information on crash factors to call for changes in policy. 

The WATS crash report is updated annually based on the previous years crash data. WATS obtains crash data across Washtenaw County from the Michigan Traffic Crash Facts reporting tool, a tool provided by the Office of Highway Safety Planning, which partners with the Michigan State Police to obtain police reports. In 2019, we updated the report to include 5-year trends for each of the crash factors that WATS examines.  For the 2021 report, intersection rankings were determined by using a crash shapefile export from Roadsoft then using ArcGIS, a centerpoint was placed at intersections with a 150 ft. buffer to determine how many crashes were included in the buffer. This new method was utilized due to inconsistencies with the intersection data tool previously used.

There is all sorts of interesting information that you can dig into in the report. Notice that for each crash factor, we provide tables with the 2021 numbers for each community in Washtenaw County. Some of the more notable observations from the 2021 report:

  • Washtenaw County (including the Monroe County portion of the City of Milan) recorded 8,664 crashes in 2021, an increase of 20.9% from 7,164 in 2020. 

  • While the overall number of reported crashes increased, the severe crash rate decreased by 5.8% from 4.43 (2020) to 4.17 (2021) per 100 million VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled). 

  • VMT increased by 10.1% in 2021 compared to the previous year. The VMT recorded for 2021 is still lower than 2019. 

  • In Washtenaw County, 82.1% of the 8,664 reported crashes involved property damage without injuries, 16% involved minor or possible injuries, and 1.68% crashes involved serious or fatal injuries.

  • Pedestrian and bicycle related crashes are more common in urban areas, and most of these crashes are injury crashes. Crashes involving pedestrians increased 17.9% from 67 crashes in 2020 to 79 crashes in 2021. Crashes involving bicyclists were up less than 1% from 59 crashes in 2020 to 62 crashes in 2021. 

If there is other information you’re interested in, if you’d like us to pull the five year trends for a specific factor for your community for example, or if there’s another data request you have, please feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to work with you. You can also access the Michigan Traffic Crash Facts reporting tool at www.michigantrafficcrashfacts.org. SEMCOG also has some great searchable resources and an interactive map for crash data.