FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE; January 5, 2006

ODESSA -You’re tired, sleepy, distracted…and you’re behind the wheel of an automobile. Suddenly, you snap to attention - aware of a loud, rumbling sound and that your steering wheel is vibrating. You steer your vehicle back into the driving lane.

A rumble strip may have just saved your life.

The Federal Highway Administration reports that run-off-the-road accidents account for a third of all traffic deaths in the US. In 2000, almost 16,000 traffic fatalities were attributed to these type crashes at a taxpayer cost of almost $80 billion a year.

Fatigue, drowsiness, and driver inattention play a significant factor in these single-vehicle crashes. In 1998, the National Sleep Foundation reported that more than 52% of all adults surveyed in the past year had driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy.

TxDOT is addressing this problem with a safety feature called ‘rumble strips’, a grooved ribbing of asphalt along the edge line of a highway. Research indicates that the strips reduce run-off-the-road crashes by as much as 50 percent.

The strips, which cost about 15 cents a foot, have been carved into Interstate 20 in Midland and Ector counties during recent construction projects and are planned for most of the region’s multi-lane divided highways.

In addition to being cost-effective, rumble strips provide savings to taxpayers by helping reduce these types of crashes. Most of Interstate 20 will eventually have the safety features as the strips are include in highway construction projects.

TxDOT hopes that the strips will reduce the rising number of single-vehicle rollover accidents.

According to unofficial records, 41 of this year’s fatality accidents in the 12-county area of the Odessa District were from single-vehicle accidents, resulting in 42 of this year’s 66 highway fatalities.

While highway fatalities in the Odessa District were well off the record-high 97 fatalities that were recorded in 2004, single-vehicle fatality accidents in 2005 increased by nearly 65 percent -up 16 from last year’s 25.

For more information contact Glen W. Larum, TxDOT- Odessa District Public Information Office, at (432) 498-4746.