Every year the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) utilizes CHP collision data to rank incorporated communities of similar size on their relative rates of traffic safety, as measured by collisions resulting in injury or death.  Specifically, the OTS examines the following data:

• Victim and collision data for the rankings is taken from the latest available California Highway Patrol (CHP) Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) data.
• Victim and collision rankings are based on rates of victims killed and injured or fatal and injury collisions per “1,000 daily-vehicle-miles-of-travel" (Caltrans data) and per “1,000 average population" (Department of Finance data) figures. This more accurately ensures proper weighting and comparisons when populations and daily vehicle miles traveled vary.

Although the rankings do not account for local factors like bike-modal share, which may over- or under-state collision rates, the OTS collision data sets do provide a snapshot of what happened in communities in the SGV and across the state in 2010.  

Of particular interest to anyone who walks or rides a bike are the absolute numbers and rankings for collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists, highlighted in the spreadsheet of all the incorporated jurisdictions in the San Gabriel Valley available for download below. The spreadsheet also contains data for SGV cities with fewer than 25,000 residents (e.g., Bradbury, Duarte, Irwindale, South El Monte, San Marino, Sierra Madre), which is not available on the OTS website, but was requested and received via the OTS Public Affairs office (OTS does not publish rankings for these communities online because their validity is questionable, as the difference of 1-2 injured/killed, or a population change of a few hundred, could send a ranking way up or down. However, the crash and victim totals for these communities should be accurate.)

For those that don't have the time/interest in checking out the full data set, we've thrown together the rankings and the absolute number of cyclists injured/killed in the SGV for cities of 25,000 or more, according to the most recent OTS data (2010), below. Please note that some of the OTS rankings appear off insofar as the bicycle crash rankings for certain communities do not mirror the absolute number of injured/killed cyclists. We believe this is based on their smaller populations, but are following up with OTS staff for clarification. Hopefully, we'll have an update, soon!  

OTS Rankings (bicyclists injured/killed by population, 2010) Cities w/ 25-50,000 Residents (93 cities)

13. Azusa (27 cyclists)

17. South Pasadena (14)*

18. Claremont (19)*

21. San Gabriel (20)

28. La Verne (12)*

33. Monrovia (33)

48. Temple City (8)

58. Covina (8)

63. La Puente (5)

64. San Dimas (5)

85. Walnut (2)

Cities w/ 50-100,000 Residents (103 cities) 

29. Alhambra (35 cyclists)

30. Glendora (21)

40. Rosemead (18)

42. Monterey Park (20)

57. Arcadia (14)

88. Baldwin Park (8)

98. Diamond Bar (3)

Cities w/ 100-250,000 Residents (of 53) 

4. Pasadena (89)

5. El Monte (72)

23. Pomona (47)

25. West Covina (31)