(KNSI) – Central Minnesota has been picked to pilot a new tool for a data-driven approach to making the roads safer as the 100 deadliest days to travel get underway.
The program is designed to help identify which places have the greatest risk of fatal or serious injury accidents. The area was chosen because of the large amount of summer traffic due to Interstate 94 and Highway 10 being gateways to cabin country and because deputies, officers and troopers in the area have a long history of coordinating together.
Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety Director Mike Hanson told KNSI News that this is also cutting-edge technology that many other places in the country are watching. “We’re at the tip of the spear when it comes to using this advanced technology to look at data in ways that we’ve never been able to do before.”
Jake Judd/KNSI News
The model predicts 42 fatal or serious injury crashes in the region over the next 16 weeks, which comprise the summer driving season.
Hanson explained that all the data they’re gathering from the pilot project will help develop the software and make it more accurate. “The beautiful part about this technology that we’re using, machine learning and some artificial intelligence, is these tools grow and learn by every bit of data that we put into them.”
Hanson says the state has been working on getting the program up and running for about a year because there looking for something to make a meaningful impact on summer road safety. “We’ve been on this traffic fatality plateau for too long. We need to find the next generation of tools that is going to get us off that plateau, and that can and will take us to zero fatalities on Minnesota roads.”
St. Cloud Police Chief Jeff Oxton explained how they plan to use the system. “We’re going to have our data analysts look at these, look at this each week at our Monday morning staff meeting. We’re going to have them present to us what that looks like for the week and then we get that out to all of our staff so that our officers have all that data prepared for them and they know where to go out and when they have the time to do it, they’re going to do traffic in those areas.”
He believes the software will let them station their officers along the most dangerous stretches of road for crashes. “If we can predict where that’s likely to happen, we can put resources on there and just more likely be really effective with those resources. So that’s the hope, that’s the plan, and really, I am confident that we’re onto something here and that we’re going to see some positive results.”
Both Oxton and Hanson said it’s also up to drivers to keep the roads safe by slowing down, putting down distractions such as a cell phone, don’t drive impaired and always wear a seatbelt.
Jake Judd/KNSI News
Other agencies taking part in the program are the Albany Police Department, Belgrade/Brooten Police Department, Benton County Sheriff’s Office, Cold Spring Police Department, Foley Police Department, Melrose Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol, St. Joseph Police Department, Sartell Police Department, Sauk Centre Police Department, Sauk Rapids Police Department, Stearns County Sheriff’s Office and the Waite Park Police Department.
Memorial Day through Labor Day is known as the “100 deadliest days” for drivers because of the increase in fatal crashes. In 2024, 151 Minnesotans died during that stretch.
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