Deaths from car crashes in Halifax fell in 2022, new report shows

The latest numbers on traffic collisions in Halifax show accidents are relatively steady while municipal officials also identified the most dangerous intersections in the city.

Staff presented an annual update on the city's strategic road safety plan to the city's transportation standing committee Thursday.

In 2022, 11 people died in collisions and 776 others were injured on all roadways within the Halifax Regional Municipality. Fifteen people died in traffic accidents in the area in 2021.

The report covers 100-series highways and other provincial roads, as well as municipal streets.

The 787 collisions were up slightly compared from 739 in 2021, including more pedestrians and cyclists being hit than the year before.

"Every year there's more students, there's more tourists, there's more people walking our streets and more people driving in our community," Lucas Pitts, HRM's director of traffic management told councillors.

But looking at the collisions per 100,000 people, the latest numbers actually dropped to 163.8 per 100,000 people from the pre-pandemic baseline of 185 per 100,000. The baseline level is an average of collisions in 2018 and 2019.

Pitts said given Halifax's major growth, with thousands of new people moving to the region in 2022, using population-based statistics is the most accurate look at what's happening.

However, Norm Collins, president of the Crosswalk Safety Society of Nova Scotia, said the reality is not as "rosy as we believe the report suggests."

"We believe it is inappropriate and misleading to unilaterally move the goal posts in the middle of the game," he said. "Not only has there been no improvement, but rather [there's been] an increase in both pedestrian and bicyclist collisions, and impaired driving. The fact the report does not focus on these poor results is disappointing."

The staff report said 42 per cent of collisions had contributing factors that can be controlled with law enforcement and traffic engineering changes, including aggressive driving, distracted driving and impaired driving.

Pitts said he's received the most emails about drivers behaving badly in front of schools, but there's not much the municipality can do with road design to change "gross misbehaviour."

City looks at top 10 intersections for collisions

He added city staff are working with Halifax police and RCMP to share specific data about hotspots for distracted or aggressive driving, so officers can focus on where to ticket people who are breaking the law.

About half of the collisions, 376, were related to intersections and the report identified the top 10 with the most incidents. They include:

• Burnside Drive at Wright Avenue. 
• Bayers Road at Connaught Avenue. 
• Albro Lake Road at Victoria Road. 
• Bayers Road at Joseph Howe Drive and Dutch Village Road. 
• Mumford Road at Halifax Shopping Centre. 
• Burnside Drive at Commodore Drive and Ronald Smith Avenue. 
• Bedford Highway at Hammonds Plains Road. 
• Portland Street at Spring Avenue and Portland Estates Boulevard. 
• Dutch Village Road North at Joseph Howe Drive. 
• Chebucto Road at Connaught Avenue. 

Pitts said staff are working on action plans to improve these intersections in the coming years.

The report also outlines the dozens of traffic safety measures that were added last year, including crosswalks with flashing beacons and advance lights for pedestrians.

Halifax aims to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries to zero by the year 2038.