Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: You're on that.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Good morning. It is Senate Transportation. It is Thursday, January 8, and we are this morning talking we went around the table the first day, and we one of the areas that was of general concern to every member of the committee around the table, and I took notes. So it was safety. And so I thought what we would do to kick that off is start with crash data in something that is harder than and we thank you for coming in short notice. In the first week of the session, it's always a little hard for us to get everything going and to because most of us move from one life to another and the one life to the others, which is not always pretty. But we are here with Mandy Yes. And Wade. And if the two of you wanna do you wanna sit together? How do you just tell us how you wanna do this and and introduce yourselves, and we will this will be our start to talk about safety and not our last time. Okay.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Good to know. Good morning. For the record, my name is Mandy Chatney. I am the manager of the data and analytics section within the operations and safety bureau at VTrans. Do you want to join

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: me up here, Wade? So Mandy put so much work into her presentation. I had very little for the commercial vehicle side, so I think I'll let her if that's okay. Well, why

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: don't you both introduce yourself and then if you wanna chime in, we don't end up with that. Sure. Sounds good.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: And I'm Wade Cochran, Director of Enforcement and Safety at DMP.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Thank you. Good. Alright. So I'm gonna go through our crash data. I did a little comparison from '24 2024 to 2025 for you. I'll also just preface this. I am doing this a lot earlier this session, and our our fatal crash data is still not finalized. So for the fatal crashes, we need to waste it's it's a very specific seven hundred and twenty hours after the last of the year because if somebody dies within that period of time and from a crash in December so that brings us out into February, usually, before we can fully say that our fatalities are final. Okay. So I'll just I'll preface all of this with that, and I'll probably say it again a few more times through this. Alright, so I'll just walk us through some of our data here. I pulled together this slide to share with you, to show our annual fatalities and the five year average fatalities. There's also Okay, good. There's also a chart here to show the serious injuries. I wanted to show you that because our serious injuries and our fatalities are both trending up. So I pulled this out. Normally, we look at the at just a five year snapshot. I pulled this out to ten years to give you kind of a better view of what's really happening. I like to usually talk about how fatalities are funny because we usually have a dip one year out of five. So that's what this is kinda showing. So in 2019, we dropped to forty seven, but then we climbed very quickly in 2022 to seventy six fatalities from forty seven. We did see a couple of years decrease again, and then we are seeing yet again this year an increase. Two numbers? I'm sorry?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: The two numbers.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So so in the in the column or in the bar chart part, that is the total number of fatalities.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Lower number.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: The lower number. And then the upper number along the the orange.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Probably the orange. Those are five year averages. Okay. So the line at the top is a five year average.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yes. So we track five year averages. It's a five year rolling average. It's a standard for it's a standard national approach. So we usually we we track that more closely because our fatalities, as you can see, kind of fluctuate year to year. So this kind of it's it controls the statistical fluctuations. And Vermont has I mean, compared to larger states, obviously, we have a a low number of fatalities. But for Vermont, I think any number of families losing a loved one is is tragic. So we and then the five year averages are also used in our strategic highway safety plan. You know,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: can I shift my Absolutely? One of the so 2022 was a high mirror. Yes. And 2022 was in the middle of COVID, and my sense is is that we were traveling a lot less miles. Correct. But the the fatal crashes is dramatically up. Does anybody take compare estimates of miles traveled versus versus this? Because I would think that if the amount of miles traveled was down, shouldn't the fatalities be down? But this is completely opposite from

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We tracked with national trends. 2020 was the first year of COVID. Our fatalities jumped from forty seven to sixty two. They jumped again to seventy four, and then they went up again to seventy six. The the vehicle miles traveled, so we call that the BMT, that did that decreased exponentially in 2020. It did rebound a little bit in '21 and a little bit more in 2022, but we do track that. It's called a fatal crash rate. So it it is a a statistical piece of information that we do track. There's a national crash rate. Vermont also does our own. I didn't put that information in here. I'm happy to share that with you all. Could share

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: that because it just seems like I that you know, we we dramatically dropped the miles traveled during those periods of time, and the crack rate is up, and it just seems weird. Yeah.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: And you can see our our serious injuries also increased in 2021 and 2022. So it wasn't just fatal crashes, and that's why I put I don't normally share the serious injury stuff, but I I wanted to because it's not just our our people are dying. People are being seriously injured at a higher rate as well. So, that's definitely an issue. Go ahead.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And do you do you also compare the national crush rate? Do you compare it to other states? I assume you have that data. Like, how do we compare it to maybe New Hampshire?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Do have that. We've been we've been taking a look at that a little bit. Interestingly enough, other states are not they we their data is a little harder to find sometimes, so not all states share it as quickly as we have ours. But we have I don't One of my data analysts, I think, Tanya Miller, if any of you ever see any Crashback stuff. She's my FARS analyst. She's been pulling all of that together in kind of a a larger, dataset. So I can find out what she has and also share

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: that. Know for an liar to up in New England states or to even other states.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We usually track really closely with Rhode Island of all the states. Rhode Island similar in size, and for some reason, they have a similar number of fatalities. But I do think that they have a higher v m vehicle miles traveled number. So but I'll look into that, EMT, Shannon, and other states.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So Rhode Island has higher vehicle miles traveled than us?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I think they have because they have a don't they have a higher slightly high? I'm not sure about their population.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: No. No. Shouldn't. I shouldn't.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: They go around. I could drive across

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: the whole state. Yeah. Because they're a they're

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: a smaller state in size, but as far as population, think they're a little bigger. Alright. Any other questions? Well, you're going

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: to talk about other components today Yes. There are things that are not related to miles traveled that

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: are really impactful on Yeah. If you if you get a chance and you can send over some stuff about the comparisons for miles traveled, for example. Yeah. And if you and we may have a few other charts that we'd Yes. Like to

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: The the VMT one is interesting. I actually almost put it in here, then I was like, that's too much.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: No. There's not too much graphs

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: this Okay. Good. Hard to know when you're pulling these things together. So okay. So I shared this last year. I wanted to really just put this back up on the screen because when I move over to our '24 to '25, you'll see an interesting change. So last year, I shared from '23 to '24, we saw decreases in fatalities, impaired driver, fatal crashes, unveiled fatalities, and motorcyclist fatalities.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And this is the decrease in '22.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. So this is this is the previous. So and we saw increases in speed in pedestrians. So I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this one because then when I get to the next one, Just as a reminder, these are like differences of a couple of of people in a lot of cases. Right? So the fatalities was a difference of 10, but most of them were five to six or but Our motorcycles went from eighteen and twenty three to six and twenty four. So that's why you see that huge decrease. Alright, so this is our 24 to 25. Very big difference from the previous year. Our fatalities increased. It was a difference of two. So, that still shows an increase. And we had driver impaired fatal crashes is increasing. That's a difference of six crashes where, again, I mentioned I would say this multiple times, our data is not final. We do not have toxicology for any of our December crashes, and there are eight of those. So, keeping that in mind, we still have, we know of, I think we know four, I think when I was looking at it, I think I've written down somewhere. Oh, I have it on the next slide. So, we do have we do have some information, but we don't have all of them. Our unbelted fatalities, those changed. Those are increasing as well. And I have this little window I can't see. Our speed related fatalities decreased a little bit. That was a difference of seven. So, we went from 20 crashes with speed related to or from 27 to 20. I'm sorry. Our pedestrians pedestrian fatalities increased, which was a difference of three people. So we went from six to nine this year in 2025. And our motorcyclist fatalities increased and they went back from six to nine.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Thank you very much. And this I mean, we all had a sense that things were more dangerous and we were they are. A question about, so if there's driver impaired and speed in the same crash, which do you choose?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We would count them both. Both? So in here this would be like just looking at speed and just looking at impaired, But a lot of our crashes have multiple factors. Okay. So like impaired, unbelted, speeding, there was a pedestrian hit. Like all of those could happen in one crash.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: But in this analysis, are there duplicate?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: There is duplicate. There are duplications. Yeah. It's a duplication. I'm just looking at impaired, and then I'm just looking at unbelted, and so those could cross over.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. Yeah. And then the category or is there a

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: category for driver distraction? We do look at that. Unfortunately, distraction is really difficult to nail down and it's likely underreported. Right. Underreported by the operator, underreported, therefore, by law enforcement who wouldn't know if somebody doesn't report it. I was literally just in a motor vehicle crash last this past weekend. Somebody rear ended me. And she hit me so hard that there's no way that she was doing the five miles an hour that she told the police officer. So but that's what gets reported in the report. So those are the types of things, like, if you've ever gone through something like this, you know that there are things that they there's their hands are tied a little bit based on what they're told.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Can't they get like, a lot of times people are on their phone, basically. Oh,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: it's not.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I don't know if she was.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And one of the one of the issues for us comes on the policy side is we passed no. Right. And I think we've all seen the people with the phone up like this in front of them as they're pulling through an intersection.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. That's what

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I and if we aren't enforcing it, but yet we've had the law, I I personally really have a problem with us having laws that we don't enforce because I think it leads to people not respecting the law. Great. And that's just my so and not being able and I think most of us think of distraction for the most part now, the biggest culprit would be on phone. Agreed. But there are so many other things. Yeah. I

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: mean, when I was 16, I went off the road, and the reason I went off the road was not because of a cell phone because that was way too long ago. But I had a dog in the car, and I looked back to see what you know, he was bouncing around. I'm like, are you doing? And I drove off the road. Like, there's so many other things. There's kids. There's dogs. There's the radio. There's but, yes, we mostly think of cell phones out because we're seeing that so prevalently in on the roads. Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, mister chair. I have two questions.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I want I want to know if

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: you have data around, like, human and animal related crashes and fatalities because I have desires to have a wildlife corridor at some point in our state, and I think that the best reason to do that is to eliminate the the goal would be to eliminate the deer human crashes. So I'd love if you have any information on that. And then you're using the term crash very specifically.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And I'm wondering if you could update me on, like, why we're we used to say accident. And I'm wondering yeah. If you could just describe where we are culturally with the word crash and why we use it.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So culturally, I mean, I've been doing I've been working for the agency transportation for twenty six years with the crash data. And culturally, before I even came into my job, we had try we've been trying to change the word to crash. The reason for that is that I believe I don't remember the exact statistic, but it's like 90 some odd percent, probably close to 98, ninety nine percent of crashes are due to human errors. So once once you move into that space, it's not an accident. Right? Like so something has to occur for the car car to either leave the road, for somebody to rear end somebody, for you know? I I get, like, icy roads are totally a thing. And but still, if you're going too fast to successfully stop your car behind another vehicle or if you're unable to maintain your lane, things like that, there's definitely still another factor. So we've moved in that direction in my world. I know insurance companies and and TV, you hear accident all the time still, and we we haven't quite broken that into that world of everybody calling them patches. Thank you. You're welcome. In

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: your charts and in this, and this gets into the more wonky DPO stuff. I think of the last five years as really not normal. I think of it as we had those dips because of COVID that really affect two, three, four years in this. Somewhat the concern in here is do we have the same level of enforcement out now that we had before COVID? Are we doing things different? Is there a way that the Charter we could get, what was the five year average for the last five years, what was the five year average from say 15 to twenty, ten into 15, so we can just get to try to even out the bumps of the one year or a bump that might happen, but so we could see in five year increments where we're headed.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I can't speak to law enforcement. I'm not sure if Wade would like

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: to Well, I I but we'll I I but I would rather start as we see the numbers about in the overall, the crashes that, you know, how many people died and how many people were injured. So are we headed in the wrong direction?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And try to because when you have one year to the next, if you have a big huge crash and three people passed away, that can skew the whole numbers. Absolutely. But in a five year increments I think you get. And what we're trying to figure out is are we in the overall headed in a direction that we should be concerned about? Okay.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I will take a look

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: at you. Is that go. I just so what does AOT have any data on enforcement? They don't collect any.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: They don't get any for public safety on that.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We don't know how many law enforcement officers are on the rooms and or Or

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: seven weeks. Yeah. Don't or tickets, and we'd have to get that in bound.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. That is a dataset, but From public safety. Yeah. Public safety or the judicial bureau would know. I don't I can't speak to that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I'm sure we would have it for commercial trucks, but we're not all total. Right. That's correct. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you. We're gonna have public safety, and and we should, I think, ask the ticket bureau how many tickets are handed out in Yeah. You know?

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Once with the grandpa

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: collecting that data.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Sooner, I have a really quick question. You want just overall fatalities, or are you thinking the five year increments for all of these? Categories. How hard

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: is it for you to collect?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: A lot of these are already done, and I I can see

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Give us something so we can understand the trends. Okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I will And whatever you think is important. Right?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That that well, that's what I'm basically saying. Give us something so we can understand the trends and and overall importance in that. I don't want you to take days and days of of you and your staff at time, I I think it should be easy. It it shouldn't be really difficult to give us an overall, feel for what's happening. We've been tracking a

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: lot of this for a lot of years, and I have phenomenal data analysts that work for me. So we can definitely pull something together for you. I have a few more slides, and I was gonna show you our our website too really quick too. So maybe there's some stuff in there that will answer some of your questions too.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Be transparency.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. No. That's not my website. No. We're on we are on the VTrans website,

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: though.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Hold on

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: a minute.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Alright. I pulled together a quick slide to show some the trend for our impaired driver crashes. Again, we've seen this kind of comes up and down over the years. Again, I left I put ten years out here for you. We had a dip last year, and then we're we're tracking back up again to about sixty just under sixty four percent of our crashes right now. And as I mentioned, our toxicology data is still not in for December. So that number will most likely change a little bit. But that's where we're at right now.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: That's huge because just generally alcohol has been number one.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: And you can see it's dropped.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, but unfortunately drug other has taken its place. It would have been nice if we had just the drop from alcohol. I mean, that's scary. The fifth line drug other, that's

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: a lot. And this is just fatal crashes. What definitely know, I guess. So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Is that because you only have data for fatal crashes?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We only get toxicology for fatal crashes or any serious crashes that law enforcement report back to us. If they get toxicology and do not update the report form, then we wouldn't know about it. That's what's a little scary to me is that what we know is that sixty percent -somewhat percent of our drivers in fatal crashes are impaired. So, anecdotally, you've to wonder.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Sorry. This isn't this is the person that died, not necessarily the person that was responsible for the crash.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: This is the The cause. Any driver. Yeah. This may not even be the cause.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Okay.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: This could be driver two.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Somebody hit a driver that was impaired potentially. Like, unfortunately, that happens.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: The other day, drove behind something, drove five miles an hour or two. And I was like, I think the person was Yes. Because it wasn't snow. It was just like

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's why

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: you kept flashing your lights at me. Know. I don't know.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: It wasn't a track, but

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: senator White.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: What is okay. Delta nine THC? I don't even know what that means. So what is that? And then why do we break it out? And it's yeah. Can you buy? What is that? Marijuana. Oh, okay. So delta nine THC is just saying cannabis.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: It's THC, yes. It's like Toxicology. Okay. And THC is the active component of it. So we don't track some of the other inactive things. We track it, but we don't report it. Yeah. Like CBDs. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So it so the I see that you just have it called out if they have THC essentially in their system or not. And we had spent quite a bit of time talking about the saliva test when we were originally talking about cannabis. Is that how you're under is that how you're

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: getting that data? Oh, almost all of this is from the toxicology reports, which is usually blood or other things. And I would prefer that the tox lab talk to you about all the different types of tests. Okay. But, yes, most of this is blood.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And so other drugs inc so you okay. So I see how you're breaking up. That makes sense. So it's like other drugs would be cocaine.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, dissociative anesthetics, narcotic anaglesics, inhalants, and then delta nine THC, which is in the category of cannabis.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What would be interesting to me is and I always wonder about this when they're doing the tests. And why are we doing more tests now than we were ten years ago? And are we better at testing now than we were ten years ago? And has there been a change? And that's not a question that I suspect you have an answer to, but the labs that are doing this, is this all consistent data?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yes, I would definitely talk with the toxicology lab about the evolution of of the lab because I know in Vermont, we didn't always have a lab.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right. I know that's that's another piece of that. When did when did we get a lab?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I do not know which year they we got our lab.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: In Colchester. Yeah. It is in Colchester. I didn't I know that. Not long ago.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Because that's where a lot of people need there. But Yeah. We have a real issue.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, it it it would I think it would just be interesting to hear from the lab because I'm not you know, I know we didn't have a lab and, you know, I'm looking at this going, was '16 the year we got a lab? Yeah.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: No. I actually this I I shortened this down to ten years. I have multiple years before that, but I so I'd only allow for so much

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: What did cannabis become legal?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Oh, 2038, '16. Somewhere around there.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: not a big change based on that as far as you can see. Well, I guess we it's the others, so it's hard to tell.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I can't remember which year it was legalized, but it was decriminalized prior to that. I actually have a chart showing the the change over time for and with it marked, and I just didn't put that issue either. I've been tracking that for a long time.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, this is wild. If you take your top three that include alcohol, it's 14, which is still much lower than the 20. Well I guess if you do an overlap of THC and

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: the other drugs, especially the other drugs, that's really concerning. So the other drug doesn't necessarily include THC, but it could. I should put that word in there actually now that I'm-

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: because it looks like it does. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, there would be some that don't Yeah.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I hope it's that. Good. So thank you for that. Let's you get have more eyes on this stuff because I'm always like, oh, well, I know what I mean. Yeah. But yes. So some of these are do not include Delta nine or cannabis, and there are other drugs like fentanyl and all kinds of other combinations. And there are one thing we haven't really been doing a ton of, and I did it in the past, was look at, like, poly drug versus singular drug.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: then what drug types are more prevalent and that's changing too in Vermont. Generally that is changing. Yeah, that would be helpful.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: I mean, think as specific as we can be.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Go ahead, Pat. On all your alcohol categories, the first three, they're all over the legal limit on alcohol, you must have some stops that like I'll call it point zero zero four and then combination of THC that brings you over. Correct.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So for alcohol, actually it was interesting when I was working with Tanya yesterday to pull this together. I actually took one off of the alcohol only line. So there were three, but then she said, well, one of those drivers was point zero seven seven. So I removed it. So that would have been three otherwise, but the person was just under the legal limit. But we get those numbers even so.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So Yeah. But where does that go?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: That would go that would have gone in the alcohol only.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Oh, okay. Yep. Okay.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So they didn't have drugs.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah. So where did it go? It's still a fatality.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: It's still a fatality.

[Rep. Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Just wouldn't be on this sheet.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: It wouldn't be on this sheet or whatever the other

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. It might show up in one of those other categories. Absolutely. Alright. Yep. Okay. Anything else in this one? Talked a little bit about occupant protection or restraints. Again, we're seeing this well over fifty percent of our fatalities that have the option to wear a seatbelt that do not.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: Well, I don't know about

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: as a result, they're being killed by crashes without their belt.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Do you know how many of those are children?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Or could you find out

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: how many?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So we do have a line in the chart or the graph. I'm sorry. In the chart next to it, it says improper child restraint is zero, but we don't break it out to say that For teenagers even, maybe. I don't know. Whatever would be be useful because this we need to do outreach. Yep. Teens, kids. We don't believe we've had any small children and that were this year, but I can't remember for sure. So They might

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: not be out here anyway. Just help me. So if I'm looking at your chart and it says unbelted Mhmm. And I've been drivers at 18 or 25, and you have six was it sixty one? Sixty one fatalities. Sixty one fatalities. Yeah. So that's less than a third. So when I'm looking at this and it says 56%, what

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So does that we're removing we're not counting pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, anybody that wouldn't wear a seat belt, we're not actually at, we're not calculating them in that percentage. So if anybody that had the option of wearing a seat belt in a car or a truck, like, a tractor trailer truck, like, any of those vehicles where a seat belt is an option. Yeah. We then take that number and then divide it by or divide that by the number of unbelted people. So it's only that top 21, 17, and well, zero. So twenty one and seventeen, which would be 38 divided by or divided by 61, I believe, is how we're coming up with that. So it's a little over 60%

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: or 50%. Sorry. Okay. And, you know, and my question in in that it what it brings up is because we the our belting law is secondary, not primary. How would our numbers relate to national numbers?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Fatality wise, I'm not positive. Can look into that one.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Question is, I know that even in the states where they have, you know, primary enforcement where they do that, it must be in those states, I would think we probably are tracking pretty close or better to the places that are primary. But I don't I I Yeah. I it would be nice to be able to see that within this.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I believe that's one other data point Tanya is working on pulling for other states, specifically for the Northeast, but I'll take a look at that. I think we track higher than national defense.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That that

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: But I will look

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: at that. I I just would like to, you know, maybe we are. I but I can't tell from this. Yes. Yeah.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I can take a look at that for you. I'm

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: always open to that conversation.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Go ahead. So, I am so glad that we are talking about this this early so that we can do something. So, just two questions. So, we looked at crashes that you know, killed or hurt people. Are are just crashes that didn't hurt people. Are those increasing also? Are they following the same trend? Or can you tell us then?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Our number of total crashes annually is dropping. Oh. But it's a reporting. There's some some changes in reporting policies around the state for law enforcement. I was trying not to bring that up. But I was trying not to bring No. I just think it's That's complicated. Working with

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: them.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We've been doing a lot of outreach with law enforcement. We're trying to get all crashes as a so, you know, I used my crash as an example. Yeah. That's a reportable crash even though nobody was injured, nobody was killed, but there was damage. So those are the types of crashes that aren't always necessarily making it into our system anymore. So we have seen a drop from we were we were getting around 10 to 14,000 crashes over several years. Last year, we were we received around 7,000, which is a huge draw. And as far as as looking at our fatalities and our serious injuries increasing over time, one would think that other crashes that aren't significant were also increasing but there might be a change in how they're being reported. One would think that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Wow, okay. So then my other question is just insurance companies are really good at keeping track of things just on their own. I moved here from another state and our auto insurance went down five, we paid in Vermont for a year what we had paid in Florida for a month because this is a very safe state or has been. So I think it might be helpful to talk to insurance companies or maybe if you have other suggestions because when trends like this happen prices go up, And that's going to be a way to get people's attention

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: on your car insurance is going go up if

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: we keep going this way. I mean obviously hurt to individuals is the first horrible thing but I think we should talk to the insurance companies if we can about this.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: So maybe a theory I have is telling me something all wet, but I I would think maybe it's due to the monetary damage in the accident, in the in the, amount of time it takes a to do a report, maybe?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I think I think you're onto something. Sound good?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. I think since COVID

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: There's been a lot of changes to just law enforcement in general. But it is cars, you know, damage for for my vehicle alone, which was just a bumper and a back burner panel, but it's gonna be $3,500. Yeah. There is a statute that says that as an operator, I need to report to the MP, but they're the statute for law enforcement is that they if they investigate a crash, they must report it. So we're trying to remind everybody that that's the case, you know, that these are all nonreportable crashes that are happening. So we've been doing Tanya has done we've kinda done a a new wholesale training out to law enforcement. And so she's done, I think, 40 some odd trainings this past year with them, and we're we're continuing that this year to just talk to them a little bit more about what's reportable and what's not reportable and how to use our system. We've we're constantly making upgrades to that to make life easier for them to get these in. Nice. Thank you so much for being here. Do I don't know what time it is. I'm waiting on my time. Don't worry. No. Do you This is me. Oh, yeah. We're yeah. Should we have Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Why don't you go and show us, where we can find data ourselves? Okay. And then, I have been kind of keeping track of a few questions that we may want you to give back to us. Alright. Let's see. I'm gonna make sure. Because we have about a half an hour before them, but we don't expect you to take the full half hour.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: No. That's alright. I have a pair of wave with glasses.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I can say I so I appreciate the be transparency thing because this is what I've always used is the public crash data query and what they have on it. Oh, they didn't. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So where yeah. I'd love to see where else you're like, because that's the only one that I've used. Because people ask me and say, I heard there was a terrible crash, and you can find it. Yes. It takes a couple a little bit, but does.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: It's it's reliant on law enforcement to get the report submitted. So once that's in there, you will see it on there. So this is our our data and analysis sections website. We do track holidays on here. So this little chart is as of the January 5 for every year. So it's that's we're trying to compare. Like, as of this time last year or in 2024, we had one fatality. We have a whole bunch of links in here. We have an analysis showcase. We have the we, have a manual for law enforcement to use for filling out the crash report form. We recently put in a story map so that they can just a more more training tools for law enforcement is what we're what we're going for. Within my section, we also do traffic data. So the VMT, all of that data is also collected in my in my group and analyzed. We have the public query tool, as you mentioned, is here. We have a data request form that people can request data from us. And then we also have I'm gonna hop over to this really quick. So this is a strategic highway safety plan website. I think I shared this last year, back to that five year rolling average. There's a whole bunch of different data in here. And this is all, as we've been talking for the last forty five minutes about the different categories. So impaired driving, occupant protection. These are all our critical emphasis areas for our five year strategic plan. All of these are we'll just do this one. All of these are dashboards, and you can filter them however you like. There's a map. It'll show you where those crashes are occurring, and locally it's coming. It does implement. Ahead.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Mandy, so your plan is about the data. You're collecting and analyzing the data and interpreting it. Who is taking that data and working on policy?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Good question.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Is there the Governor's Safety Council still operation? Because I remember they would come in and say, we recommend X because of the data we're getting. Is anybody doing this? Are they still around?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So the Governor's Highway Safety Program is what what I've known it to be called for a lot of time is I don't know, they're I know they're not called that anymore. So our state highway safety office does a lot of behavioral safety work. Right. So there's a lot of media campaigns and work with law and grant data for law enforcement to do specified enforcement activities. So they're doing

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: a public outreach stuff about Right. And driving, but they don't do the they don't say that we think we should do acts as a policy change or a law legal change. Yeah.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I don't know who's doing a whole lot of that. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: There's the Vermont Safety Alliance, Highway Safety Alliance, which is a nonprofit. Yep. And I know

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I'm part of that too.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I don't know if you have a legislative they well, maybe you know, do they have a legislative I know they're coming at some point to the state house, but

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I don't recall having anybody on the from the legislature part of it. Yeah. It's changed a lot over the last few years, so it's we're doing some work there, but yeah. That could be a a place to start. So just throwing the the dashboard here, which you can click on a year and see how that changes some of the dashboards. Or you can if you're interested in your county, we'll do Grand Isle County. So that shows fatalities and serious injuries over the last so many years. So you can kind of play with the data. You can also look at specific age groups, injury types, operator gender. So we've done quite a bit of work on this. The strategic highway safety plan is due to be updated in the coming year. So hopefully, we'll be able to time the new update with a new website as well. Then I just talked a little bit about some of our other things that we do. We have been doing a story map every year for the last few years. Actually just Tanya just put this on the website for me so I could share it with you all today for 2024. It took a little bit more time. DMV is doing their whole upgrade, so it took a little longer for us to get some information we needed for some of this. So we talked a little bit about how often crashes occur, you know, who's who's crashing, why they're crashing, and where. So we break that down. So back to the question about we had just over 7,000 crashes in 2024. It's looking about the same for 2025. So again, this kind of breaks everything down, showing the fatalities again with a trend line. A lot of the things that I've shared with you is in here, but it's also a whole bunch of information breaking it down as to what different crashes are And then breaking, like, who down by, like, driver or passenger, where they're from, the age or by sex. So I won't scroll through this whole thing, but there are some maps in here. So I encourage you if you're interested in seeing some of this breakdown to hop in here and take a look. The links are in the PowerPoint that I shared.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: This is Power

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: BI. This is actually ArcGIS. It's a story map. He said they do that they've implemented. We've been able to do this last few years. So So Go ahead.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: I'm wondering just I know that you are a data analyst, if that's the right terminology. So I don't wanna ask you a question that, like, goes beyond your scope, but one of the things that's talked about a lot in the media lately with pedestrian deaths is that the types of vehicles that people are driving are making the death of a pedestrian, not necessarily just injuries, more likely because our vehicles are getting bigger and where people are getting hit is usually at a different point in their body. I'm wondering if you're seeing that, if you're seeing any kind of trend between where there may have just been an injury in the past, someone is is getting hit in a way that is ending their life.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. I I don't know if I can speak to that. I think it and I've read the same things. I've definitely after so many years of going to conferences and hearing national things about all these different types of crashes. It's definitely I've heard that, kinda like I've heard that back seat passengers rarely wear seat belts compared to the front seat. A lot of that is is information that we can try to call out of our data. But I think that for what you're talking about, that would be more of an injury type data set from our Department of Health. Oh, okay. They might be able to tell you whether or not the injuries sustained in these crashes are because of a larger vehicle versus a smaller vehicle.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Be interesting if we could ever get, like, the type of vehicle.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. Yeah. And and also looking at, like, the age groups that are that are are pedestrians in Vermont versus in other states might might be something to look at because, nationally, pedestrians are a hot topic. Ours are ours kinda remains steady around that six to 10 every year. It has been for quite a few years, but, those numbers are are skyrocketing. So, yeah, that's that's another piece of that. Go ahead, Patrick.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Do do you, categorize the pedestrian fatality? Like, was it the driver? Was it pedestrian carelessness? Or

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: do track. Yes. We do track whether or not it was the driver at fault or the pedestrian did something that was, darting out in front of a car or crossing the street with dark clothing. We also collect whether or not the pedestrian or the bicyclist had had drugs or alcohol in their system. Okay. And we do have a couple of those in our in our dataset for last year. But they're not listed because they weren't driving a car.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: So Yeah. We keep that up. I was hopeful that your chart on older drivers

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I know. It didn't come up.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: It didn't come up. Are we seeing an increase in accidents amongst older drivers? One would think because of our demographics, they might be

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: We I can't I can't say for sure. I do have our older driver fatalities and serious injuries behind me. As you can see, those have trended up the last few years and that if we're looking at this five year average.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Standolder driver means over 65? 60 five and over. Was it 76 the total?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yes, sorry. Is a total fatalities.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Sorry. I was like, they're all.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Oh, okay. Right.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: That's all fatalities.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: That's not just not good.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. That's

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: That's what it says,

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. Maybe this needs to be

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Can't be that high. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: It's like what percentage of our associated Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: They have a pie chart last year from here.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. I'll have to ask Ben about this one. It says, baby. So 2025, it shows eight. Oh, okay. Eight. Yeah. And then we already have one serious injury this year, it looks like.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Six out or eight

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: out of seventy six last year. Correct. So that's a you change from January 8 out. Let's can't really do much comparison to this year yet.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. Since a lot of our everything are what's affecting me and becomes anecdotal to all of it, I and since we've got twenty minutes before the secretary comes, I will give us a break. I partly asked the question because demographically, we're getting open. Yes. And I've gone through the experience of taking the license and making my father.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Oh. And

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: and all of that peace, and it becomes difficult. And this is my story. My aunt, Phila, now lives in Maine near my cousin. And we all remember when she took the license away from her father. So when she she's now 93 and still driving. And she but she now in Maine takes the driver's test every year. Mhmm. And has since she turned 85 years old, she's taken the driver's test every year and she made the commitment that she would give up her license as soon as they told her that she and she passed the test in December for this year in and so she's able to, within her community her scope of driving has gone down.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: She reached 90. She stopped doing the Massachusetts Turnpike, and she didn't drive to Albany to to her daughter's. She's but it's got smaller, but she still drives to her doctor's appointments in the community she's in and does it. But she takes the test herself every year. Voluntarily. Voluntarily. Voluntarily.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: And

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: and they have a program that encourages people to voluntarily do that in May. And I've never heard about any program here where we voluntarily said fellow older people, you have the option to do that. I think for me in families that have older family members, if there was that option, could be able to say, you've reached the age, we want you to take the test, and someone else from outside helping, in a population where we have more elderly, drivers. You know, I don't wanna tell somebody that, you know, I think my aunt Fila is being quite responsible. Yeah. And she's taking her test every year. And when and she's made the that that's a lot different than pulling a license Yeah. By a family member. And so

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: The Vermont Highway Safety Alliance does have a partner with AARP and I know they have a lot of programs for older drivers. So I think that they would

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: be great to talk to about what their programs are in Vermont and how what their outreach is. That would be actually something if Megan, should put that. I'd be interested in that because we with an aging population, I have no desire to make anything mandatory about that. But I do think that an option for families to be able to say, we're concerned,

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: but you know, here's a way to move that conversation along. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair. A question around your data for restricted licenses or folks who

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: are not allowed to drive or unlicensed. One of the concerns that have, that I have, and now we have a bill coming our way about is super speeders. People who are repeatedly the problem essentially. And it I have anecdotally felt that it is a small group of people who are causing an inordinate amount of act it crashes and also almost crashes. Okay. So if you have any and and there was a stat that the super speeder white paper had that said that seventy five percent nationally of folks with restricted licenses were still driving. So only about one fourth of them were actually never driving even though the entire group was not supposed to be driving. Mhmm. So if you have any data about how many of these crashes are happening where someone wasn't allowed to drive and the crash is still happening. And speed would also be really helpful if there's any information about the speed that is causing the fatalities because I do think a reason we see fewer injuries and more death may be because of just the speed people are going while they're driving.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Okay. I will So if have a doubt on that,

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White (Vice Chair)]: that would be helpful for understanding it.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Yeah. Already do track the number of suspended licenses on in fatal crashes. So I have that. I just didn't put that in the in my slides. But yeah. You definitely have that. But I will cross reference that with whether or not they were that crash specifically was speed related as well.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Amazing. Okay. So circle back and then, you know, tape over there. Yeah. Would you do you have stuff you'd like to add? Most Sharon, what I would if you wanna

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Do you wanna just have anything?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I could Can I just say before that and and anybody add this, your chart that you you indicated you had on miles traveled that we could get versus Yeah? That if we could get that if we could do something finer trends so we could get the overall Yep. Belted versus national DAVID if we could just get belted to see where we fit. And I would just ask you generally, it isn't a question around this table, is enforcement down? And if there's and this may be coming into your area too. Any questions we should be asking to be able to bring some clarity around that issue? What are the questions we should be asking around that issue to make that clearer for us because I think what you hear from people around this table is questions that we get from our constituents. People say, people are driving faster in there, or there's more people on the road that are driving without registered vehicles. What are the questions we should be asking that we might not be thinking about?

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: I would definitely reach out, chair, to the judicial barrel. I think a lot of answers.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep, and we would, they're on our list.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: I think they would have probably the best information.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: And they go, I mean, they can go back years. So Perfect. The only thing that I really have to add and most of our they should be all of our numbers go to Mandy's team as well. However, we have to report ours to federal motor carrier when when we respond or our team responds to a crash. So we did have a 100 and this is January to December, and much like Mandy, we hope all of December's in, but likely it's not as of this date. In Vermont, we had a 152 crashes related to commercial vehicles. Our team responded to 87 of them. That essentially means is state police could have handled some of them or we didn't go at all. We had four fatalities out of those. With those fatalities, so that was only with three crashes, there was a double fatality that Mandy also covered in her slide. What we have the luxury of doing now when we have have any crash with a commercial motor vehicle is our team basically breaks down a truck and goes through it to see if there's any fault to a commercial vehicle where, you know, if the troops are going out to a motor vehicle crash, they may not have that ability. Then that is a little a little different.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And when you say commercial vehicles, is this only the tractor trailers, or is it like the I don't know. A plumbing van or something like a vehicle, but a small vehicle.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: Right. Like, it has to meet a certain criteria, of course. Plumbing vehicle, probably not. A rider truck, a UPS truck, yes. Just by weight? By weight, by size. Well,

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: should be a lot more of those because we've got a lot more delivery trucks.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah, so many of those drivers are CDL

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: drivers, right?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: So they have a lot of

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: restrictions them.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: And then isn't there something relatively new on the tractor trailers? The owner of the trailer can make it so that you don't go more than a certain speed on a highway so that limits it. I would think that crashes have come down over the last twenty years. I don't know.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: I can't answer that because tri- I barely got this this morning. I can find out for you.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: Yeah. That would be helpful.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: But there is, I mean, there's cameras that they're required to have within a commercial vehicle, which tells a story in an accident. That's great. You can refer back to that. So but, yes, there is. I know there's speed settings in some. So I don't know all. Yeah. You know She's required.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: They're required by the company.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: Yeah. By federal motor carrier. Really? So yeah. It's Out looking and within the cab. Within the So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: For any commercial CDL? I would

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: have to confirm that with captain Nestle because that was a new something that I just learned the other day from him on that we're dealing with. So yeah. But I I will get that extra for him.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: I have some notes that's intra or interstate. I'm pretty sure it's inter.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Only for the inter

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: So interstate Interstate would be moving outside of the state borders, I believe. Right? So that's right. Yes. Yeah.

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: Think I think about that. Right? That's the plan. Sure. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: If there's anything useful for interstate, tell us. Or interested, rather. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: For most of those,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I'd be surprised if anybody with

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: a big truck was only doing interest.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Like, you know, like, it's a hard business model to say, I'm not gonna Right. Vermont. I'm saying it

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Clerk)]: would be financial. Yes. Well, tool trucks and stuff, but I'm thinking of mechanisms that we could use

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, few trucks a lot of if you're

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: have to go to Albany. Logging truck.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Right. They're you know, a lot of the guys that have logging trucks that are in my area don't leave the area. Like

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: a dump truck. Mhmm. Yep.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: You know, and and if you're doing working on a specific construction site, bringing stuff in it, so I think that's a mixed bag. Think if you're a tractor trailer truck still, you're probably going out of state of alcohol. And

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: that's basically what I have, Chair.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you both. Thank you. Know, I know we just went around the table on Tuesday and said, what are the issues that and safety became, you know, was really clear. It's one of the top things. So I think it's a great kickoff to start with the numbers. And and we are so the judicial bureau was honored, but anybody that you think that we ought to talk to in that is collecting information would be great. Okay. Safety council.

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: The State Highway Safety Office.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: The safety office.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Do you call that? What's the other group?

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: What's the nonprofit group?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Oh, Vermont Highway Safety Alliance.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'm

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: sorry? Who is that? It's a nonprofit. It pulls together stakeholders from all different types of transportation backgrounds. Right.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: And do you wish I could speak better? Is it focused on

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: the right to be better prepared?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: It's focused on a lot of the same critical emphasis areas that our strategic highway safety plan is.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Advisory is saying

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do you have their contact, Maggie?

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: Do we have a new number?

[Wade Cochran (VT DMV, Director of Enforcement & Safety)]: I can get you that number.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. If you could make sure that Megan has the contacts to those people, we would. And we'll get them on. We're gonna push them to come around too. Yes. If we're in that that spot where we're before any budgets and before we have the miscellaneous DMV bill. It's a good time for us to get educated. And thank you both. Yes, thank you

[Mandy Chatney (VTrans, Manager, Data & Analytics, Operations & Safety Bureau)]: all for your time.

[Sen. Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank you both. Thank you. We are on with the secretary at 10:50