Effectiveness of Saskatchewan Government Insurance 2014 Traffic Safety Initiatives on Reducing Casualties

Before 2014, Saskatchewan experienced a very high number of traffic collisions that resulted in higher deaths and injuries to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. The year 2012 marked an especially tragic year with 183 people killed in traffic collisions in Saskatchewan, a significant increase compared to the previous three-year, considerable the prior three-year average of 158 could not normal typical as a result of the worsening state of road safety in Saskatchewan. A Special Committee on Traffic Safety was formed to enhance road safety by examining the dominant factors that cause traffic collisions in the province: impaired driving, distracted driving, excessive speed, intersection safety, and wildlife collisions. The Committee was also charged to make recommendations highlighting education and public awareness issues related to traffic safety. In 2013, the Special Committee on Traffic Safety made a list of recommendations, including stricter penalties for impaired driving, photo speed enforcement, expanding and enhancing traffic enforcement, and introducing new measures to deal with distracted driving and speeding. In 2014, Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), acting on these recommendations, launched several initiatives introduced and introduced two new law enforcement units, with a total of 60 police officers dedicated to traffic safety enforcement. This research work examined the before and after effect of the initiative’s effectiveness by SGI in 2014. Relevant data were extracted collected from the SGI’s Traffic Accident Information System (TAIS) and through a bi-annual Traffic Safety Monitor (TSM) survey. Socio-economic variables used in the analyses were from Statistics Canada. The analyses were carried out using statistical tools such as SAS Programming and RStudio. Na¨ıve Simple before and after technique was first used to analyze the data, after which Intervention Analysis was used for a more robust result. In conducting the intervention analysis, Negative Binomial (NB) and Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) were used to analyze the data variables. In the end, this research identified the most effective initiative and recommended how the initiatives could be improved to obtain maximum efficiency in safety as targeted. The Simple Before and After analysis returned a very high reduction of about 40% in traffic casualties. Intervention Analysis, which took into consideration several covariates, confirmed the existence of reductions in collision casualties but with a smaller percentage change of 20%. It can be inferred from these two analytical approaches that the initiatives introduced by SGI in 2014 have has positive impacts on traffic safety in the province.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MSc)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Statistics

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Ajayi, Peter Olalekan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Volodin, Andrei

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Deng, Dianliang

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/4150

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/15007