A look at crash fatality numbers and an update on work zone safety cameras

On this week’s Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a follow-up conversation on numbers recently released by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) showing a decline in highway fatalities in 2025.

Gregg Brunner, chief operations officer at the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), talks about measures that can help reduce crashes, which saw a 7 percent decline from 2024 to 2025 in Michigan. Nationwide, annual fatality numbers returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2025.

As road construction season kicks off in earnest in Michigan, Brunner also discusses work zone safety. National Work Zone Awareness Week (NWZAW) is April 20-24.

Finally, Brunner also explains continuing efforts to implement a work zone safety camera program, despite some hurdles, after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation in December 2024 to authorize their use. 

An Illinois official explained on the podcast in 2022 how the cameras have helped reduce crashes there and saved lives. The experience has been the same in more than 20 other states.

Transcript

Why Crash Trends Are Shifting

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the Talk in Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. Last week, we reprised a previous podcast that featured conversations about the spike in traffic crashes and fatalities during the pandemic, and new numbers from the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration showing that in 2025 those numbers trended in the right direction. In this week's episode, MDOT COO Greg Brunner talks about measures that can and have helped reduce crashes on state trunk lines. Those are the roads under M.DOT jurisdictions, M routes, I routes, and U.S. routes. He also provides an update on implementation of safety cameras to curtail speeding in work zones. This was authorized by bipartisan legislation signed by Governor Whitmer in late 2024. Cameras have proven to significantly reduce the crashes and deaths of road workers in many other states. We're hopeful that despite some obstacles, we can finally get those in place in time to help save some workers in Michigan. Greg also previews National Work Zone Awareness Week, which is coming up April 20th and is a particular passion of his. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. Okay, again, I'm with Greg Brunner, who is the Chief Operations Officer at MDOT, and he's done this a few times before. He's had a really busy day, but I appreciate him taking time to talk on the podcast. Um we're recording on the same day that the governor kind of kicked off road construction season with an event to celebrate the project on M14 in western Wayne County. Greg, uh what I really wanted to talk about, and I previewed it last week by setting up recordings from back during the early pandemic and when people started really speeding, and despite being fewer cars on the road, we saw uh crashes and fatalities especially go up. Recently, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, came out with the numbers from across the country reported in by the various states, and we saw the numbers going in the right direction finally. Um, talk about how that plays out in Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Sure. Um, yeah, actually, NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, released that report last week. And what we saw overall nationally was that traffic deaths fell up almost 7% in 2025 to about 36,000, which when you think about it, is still a huge number of folks we've lost on our in traffic crashes throughout the year. But um, that has been improved since the pandemic when things really spiked. So that gets us down to about the lowest number we've seen since 2019. Um, the way they track it is kind of by a fatality rate where it looks at the number of fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, which is a hard concept to understand. But the way this looks, it's about 1.1 fatal crash per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. So the number of the entire public driving there. Um so again, that's the second lowest ever on record with travel being up just a little bit, and kind of 15 three-quarters we've seen since 2022, where that number's gone down. So we're lucky to see things are are headed in the right direction. You know, we saw that large fatality spike in 2020, 2021 during the pandemic. That appears that kind of fully receded now. The one thing that still is alarming though is pedestrian and cyclist deaths, they remain quite a bit, quite a bit higher than we've seen before. We refer to those as vulnerable roadway users or VRUs, which I might say that acronym kind of talking a little bit going forward. But you know, one of the things we've really been trying to figure out is what's drove those numbers back down. And you know, we're still doing some research from that standpoint, but there's a few key things um that have played a good part with that. A lot of that's infrastructure and safety countermeasures that we've been able to put in light in place uh with safer road designs, um, those types of things, new vehicle technology that's out there, and a lot of new vehicles with lane assist or adaptive cruise control, those types of things.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Sounds like we need that technology for people who are walking or riding their bikes.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yep, that would be helpful too. Any kind of technology to keep people engaged in what they do.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

So talk about we talked about the design a little bit. Talk about that, what kinds of you know, subtle or not so subtle changes, knowing, of course, that everything comes down to the funding squeeze that we're still experiencing in Michigan and a lot of states. Um, but we always say safety is a top priority, but some of these things cost money too. So I don't know, put that in perspective.

Systemwide Fixes Beyond Hotspots

Wrong Way Driving Countermeasures

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Sure. Um, historically, what we've always done is kind of looked at intersections or other areas where we've seen a high number of crashes and what we can do there. Uh that mentality has shifted a little bit. So we're looking more systemic on things we can do kind of across the entire system. Um, whether it be the wider pavement markings that we're using, we're using six-inch pavement markings now on a lot of our roadways increased from four inch. That helps driver visibility as well as um any vehicles that are seeing the road, autonomous vehicles or others to see that better. You know, we've added rumble strips on a lot of our roadways, uh increased signing, those types of things. But beyond that, we've also looked at some other crashes for like wrongway driving, those types of crashes that have been some of the most horrific ones we see on our roadways, where we get two vehicles traveling full speed head-on to crash on our roadways. Um, we've made changes to a lot of those interchanges to add red reflective sheeting if you're driving the wrong way, additional arrows, additional pavement markings, lots of static enhancements just to make things better there. But now we're kind of moving beyond static enhancements to what kinds of new technologies we can incorporate. So, you know, some of those are wrongway driving detection systems that we've had throughout the state that have had seem to have good improvements.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

That's what I was gonna ask you about. Um, it's it's difficult to know how long a sample period you need to measure whether those things are really having an effect, but it it it sounds like we have reason to believe some of those wrong way driving technologies are are are at least making it dense. Is that your understanding?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, based on what we've seen, at least from stats from last year, those numbers have gone down quite a bit for wrongway driving fatal crashes in the state. So again, we're hopeful that a lot of those improvements we're doing, whether they're static or some of the new technology type, are having that impact, that people going the wrong way realize it and turn around, or those that are driving against them, we can get some kind of notification out that they slow down and are actually look potentially looking for someone going the wrong way on the freeway.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Can you imagine? I I've seen that simulation, but I mean, can you imagine being the person driving on the freeway and getting an alert that somebody might be coming at you the wrong direction?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

You know, that that would be tough to read, I think, but it would really raise their awareness. I know, in particular, lots of these happen at night, and you can imagine just seeing headlights coming at you what that's what that's got to feel like when they're coming at you at 70 miles an hour or more.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Yeah, that's pretty terrifying. I know that uh there's almost always these are the result of people who are impaired um or sometimes you know very elderly. And that goes into a whole nother discussion about the promise of automated vehicles and uh, you know, freedom of mobility that could afford to people who otherwise have to have their driver's license taken away. Um, talk a little bit uh about what you think. I mean, you said it really well at the beginning of this, like 36,000 is still a huge number. Um, it's hard to celebrate, but when you look at spiking, you know, as much as 10% or more of that during that pandemic period, getting back to pre-pandemic numbers um does feel like a good thing. You know, talking to your friends at the Office of Highway Safety Planning and at the Michigan State Police, do you think that there's enough of a concerted effort by everybody to get those numbers down even further?

Crash Not Accident Reminder

SPEAKER_01 8:04

That's our goal when you start looking at um what's going on in Michigan. We do have a strategic highway safety plan in the state of Michigan. And what that was put together by a group of multiple agencies, uh including Amdot, the State Police, Office of Highway Safety Planning, uh, Secretary of State, Department of Education, and others, it kind of looks at as a team, how do we reduce roadway fatalities in Michigan? And what that's really aimed at is what's called a safe system approach, um, which you know works on getting that number of fatal crashes down to zero. Just in Michigan, as an example, last year, we still had over a thousand fatal crashes, which is below that national fatality rate that I had mentioned previously. But still, as you know, a thousand people is a ton. That's still a lot of improvement we want to do there. But with that safe systems approach, it's kind of a multi-tiered approach where we've kind of changed the philosophy a little bit on trying to stop every crash from happening. But knowing with this approach that unfortunately humans make mistakes. So no matter what we do for many of these aspects, the crashes are probably still gonna happen. But what can we do to kind of mitigate those from the fatal or serious crashes? How can we kind of layer different topics um to keep those people in crashes safe going forward? Um, you know, some of that's with the things I had talked about previously with safe railway users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, uh safe roads and post-crass care. How can we kind of layer those to where things can happen? You know, as an example, like I talked about with wrongway driving, we talked about both alerting people that are going the wrong way on the freeway, but also alerting uh police that there may be a wrong way driver and potentially vehicles that are driving that way to be along there may be a wrong way driver. So it's not just one layer there, we're adding multiple layers together to hopefully reduce or mitigate any of those crashes when they do happen. We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.

MDOT Message 10:02

The Michigan Department of Transportation reminds you that when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, person, or other object, it is a crash, not an accident. By reducing human error, we can prevent crashes and rebuild Michigan roads safely.

Work Zone Alerts And Connected Vehicles

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Our immediate neighboring states saw a similar decline between 2024 and 2025, declining fatalities specifically. Um actually they were a little less than us. I guess Michigan was a 7% decline. But gosh, like Minnesota had like a 22% decline, and Wisconsin uh not as much. But I just I wonder it'll be interesting when you and your colleagues who work in this have time to catch up with those other states to see what they're doing. Um, I mean, have you heard of anything that's just really innovative out there that that we'd like to try but haven't been able to yet?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

There are quite a few things we're looking at that we're implementing this year as well. Uh, lots of those are tied to work zones. And, you know, being this time of year in Michigan, that's when our work zones are really kicking off. Uh, lots of new technology we can look to incorporate in those. Um, one of the ones we really started using last year was just a cue detection system for work zones. In advance of the work zone, where you have sensors out there that can tell when traffic is starting to back up as it enters in the work zone, that sends alerts on message boards to cars coming up before they get to those backups. Just uh keep their eyes on the road that there's a queue ahead and they may have to slow down or stop, just to kind of avoid some of those horrible rear-ended crashes we've seen at some of those queues in our work zones. There's those types of technology out there, but also quite a bit more. Um, we are piloting a system this year in the state where we've upfitted about 100 MDOT vehicles where once they turn on their flashers or their bubble lights on the top, what that does is automatically sends a signal to a few OEMs, uh Volkswagen cars, Stalandis, others, um Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps, all those types of in-vehicle navigation that people use. Let's specify that OEMs is uh original equipment manufacturers. Yeah, one of the new technologies we've been able to incorporate this year in MDOT is uh we've up in about 100 MDOT vehicles with new technology where with Obbalite in their vehicles, once they turn that on um as they're entering a work zone or doing work wherever on our roadways, that sends out a message that is picked up by uh many vehicle manufacturers, Volkswagen, Stellantis, others, as well as navigation systems like Waze, Google Maps, Apple Maps, those types of things, that once they flip that switch, it shows there's a work zone out there. So vehicles coming up upon them know that there's a worker out there. It doesn't rely on crowdsource data like those applications usually do. Do little things like that.

National Work Zone Awareness Week

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Well, yeah, I was just gonna say the crowdsourcing, but the Waze and Google, which are probably the two most common, rely on. Yes, you're right. So you mentioned work zones. Um, let's let's talk a little bit about that. We've got the national national work zone safety awareness kickoff coming up uh in just a couple weeks, uh the the 20th. Um anything new this year? I know this is a particular passion of yours. You're the only person I know with an orange suit. Um talk about why that's so important to you and what uh you know what might be new um as we go into this year's construction season.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Sure. Um, so what National Work Zone Week is, is where many of the kind of traffic control providers, contractors, departments of transportation, other jurisdictions uh that participate in work zones, how we really focus on safety for that week, not only looking at lessons learned from the past year, but what we can do in the upcoming year, and more or less just to raise awareness for folks that once they are driving down the road, if they do encounter a work zone, just slow down, keep your eyes on the road. Um, and again, people are out there working. I know I've been out on the side of the roads quite a bit with people going a few feet away from you, 70, 80, 90 miles an hour. Um, so just imagine if you're trying to do your job with those things going on right behind you, how dangerous that could be. So, again, just a reminder for everybody to slow down in those work zones. Um mentioned new technology too. Those are the things we'll be talking about uh during this week as well, some of the things we want to roll out statewide.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

So, speaking of technology, um after a huge push and mDot advocated for this, and so did the laborers and the operating engineers 324, the the folks that run the real heavy equipment to help build roads and bridges, as well as uh some bipartisan lawmakers who sponsored the legislation that the governor signed last year to finally get safety cameras in our work zone so that we can monitor speeding and try to do some enforcement to get people's attention. It's been very successful. I've talked about it on the podcast with folks from Illinois. Um, it's it's made a big difference there in Maryland, Pennsylvania, some other states. Um, we ran into a bit of a snag because it was included in some work projects that were um halted uh in the legislature. But you seem uh committed to trying to move this forward one way or another. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

That's correct. That's one thing we still want to move forward. Um, beyond just the funding standpoint, we're working through kind of the administrative side of things because this does, it doesn't just touch on MDOT, it touches on quite a few other state agencies um in terms of that citation side. So kind of at a high level for those that hadn't heard about these before, we're looking at work zone safety cameras where um more or less it's a trailer out in the work zone to aimed at people speeding through the work zone that would issue citations if they are going above the prescribed speed limit through that work zone. Um, so what would happen is I think it's a tiered approach to those where the first time you would just receive a warning, but then the costs associated go up, or if the number of citations you get increases, there's no points associated, but again, it's just to have people drive safely through the work zones is what the entire goal of this is. It's not aimed at kind of a money-making campaign or anything else. In my ideal world, if we were to implement this technology, we would write zero technology uh citations because everybody's driving safely through the work zones.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

And I'm glad you made that point because that came up a lot in discussion about the legislation and that always there's that skepticism that this is just uh a revenue generating concept. And I think, like you said, everybody said it in their testimony. Uh, the various labor groups, um, you know, MIT of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association, which lobbies on behalf of the contractors, everybody to a one said what you just said, that in an ideal world, we'd never have to have a citation because everybody is following the proper speed limit through these work zones.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, and that's that's like what our hope is. And judging by what other states have seen in this capacity, they've seen a significant drop in work zone speeds towards compliance. So, again, that's that's what the overall goal is, um, to be able to work that way so that everybody at the end of the day can go home safely.

Seat Belts And Final Safety Ask

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah, like everything, um, you don't know until you get into it uh, you know, what the various obstacles are gonna be and the hurdles that'll have to be overcome. But Lindsay Renner and Jason Gutting and Ken Zimmer's area at MDOT are are committed to making it work. And I know that they're they're having to overcome a lot of obstacles, but they're staying with it, so that's good. Is there anything else you want to say uh as our chief safety advocate uh about these topics?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

No, it's just you know, I want to continue to encourage people to drive safely through the work zones no matter what they're doing. Our work zones are even on our roadways every day. I know it's easy to be distracted by your cell phone or to drive a little faster because you want to get somewhere, but at the end of the day, I just ask everybody to focus on getting where you're going safely. I know when I looked at kind of the the number of fatal crashes we had in Michigan last year, almost a third of those were involved people not wearing seatbelts. So, my one piece of advice I give to everybody I talk to is no matter where you go, please do me a favor, just wear a seatbelt so you can get there safely.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the seat belts because that was a a huge factor, I think, in the number of fatalities and why, even with fewer cars on the road, um, crashes and fatal crashes went up during that period. And the state police told us that not only were people driving faster, many of them decided to quit wearing seatbelts. And um, there's probably myriad reasons for that, but that's just really disturbed me. So I'm glad you mentioned that.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yep, one easy safety fix that everybody can do to help us out. Big picture.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, Greg, for talking about this. And as always, uh, you know, I really appreciate um what a great spokesperson you are on this topic and your passion for it. So thank you. Thanks for having me, Jeff. Stay safe. I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jackie Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.