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Want Safe Travels? Find Freeways with these Features

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1711-15 0016 1711-15 Matt Heaton November 13, 2017 Photography by Nate Edwards/BYU © BYU PHOTO 2017 All Rights Reserved photo@byu.edu (801)422-7322
Photo by Nate Edwards

New BYU research commissioned by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows a number of highway features that make accidents less likely. Among them are some that are intuitive: minimal hills and curves, paved right shoulders and concrete-barrier medians. But one finding was less expected: lower speed limits were associated with higher rates of accidents.

“I think the speed limit was the shocker,” said statistics professor Matt Heaton, who coauthored the study, recently published in Statistical Modelling. “We found that the lower speed limits, the 60 to 65 zones, were the higher-risk areas.”

Read here for more.