Bicycle Colorado driver behavior study exposes violations (Bicycle Colorado)
Shift into Safe News
Bicycle Colorado, the state’s leading organization championing the safety and interests of bicyclists, and Obvio.AI, a technology company dedicated to curbing reckless driving, have partnered to complete a landmark driver behavior safety study in Colorado. After conducting 30-minute observations at 196 intersections across 25 Colorado cities and counties, they identified nearly 7,900 violations among just over 49,000 vehicles.
The study, the most comprehensive of its kind in Colorado, shines a light on the driver behaviors that contribute to traffic violence, which is a growing public health epidemic. In addition to accelerating infrastructure changes to prioritize safety over vehicle speed, the study calls for a comprehensive automated enforcement strategy as a scalable, unbiased way to save hundreds of lives each year — especially those of vulnerable road users.
A Public Health Epidemic
From 2021 to 2025, 3,562 people were killed in traffic crashes in Colorado, and over 16,000 suffered serious, often permanent injuries. Put another way, on any given day, approximately two people will die, and 10 will suffer a serious injury while engaging in the routine activity of traveling around their community. Or consider this: For two decades, traffic violence was the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States. Today, it is second only to gun violence.
How Did We Get Here?
The explanation begins with a simple truth: People are fallible and can make poor and sometimes truly awful decisions while driving. Instead of applying this understanding when designing our transportation system, we did the opposite and built a system that amplifies the negative consequences of our poor choices.
- We have designed roads to maximize vehicle speed and traffic volume: Many of our roads are designed to prioritize vehicle speed and throughput at the expense of safety — particularly for people outside of vehicles, such as bicyclists and pedestrians. Far too many streets encourage speeding, including those that cut through mixed-use neighborhoods where people are walking, biking and rolling.
- We choose to drive heavier vehicles: Over time, Americans have increasingly chosen larger and heavier vehicles with wide, high front-end profiles. Over the past 30 years, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten larger, about 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller and 1,000 pounds heavier. The average hood height of passenger trucks increased by at least 11% between 2000 and 2021, and their average weight increased by 24% between 2000 and 2018, according to a Consumer Reports analysis of industry data.
- We choose to drive distracted: Distracted driving has become normalized, driven in part — but not solely — by smartphones and increasingly complex dashboard screens. An “everyone does it” mentality has taken hold, creating a dangerous social norm that treats distraction as acceptable behavior, unlike driving under the influence, which is widely condemned.
- We fail to enforce traffic laws consistently: Traffic laws are not enforced consistently, often due to limited funding and staffing resources. This lack of enforcement effectively signals that dangerous driving behaviors are tolerated, undermining safety for everyone on the road.
