Training center aims to drive down accidents
Charlotte, N.C., has opened a $2.25 million driver-training facility for city employees. The Charlotte Vehicle Operations Center is expected to help reduce accident-related claims and downtime involving city vehicles and employees that cost about $2 million annually.
Charlotte has experienced an explosive growth during the past 20 years that has transformed the city into an internationally recognized banking, commercial and transportation hub with roughly 650,000 residents. Keeping up with the growth has presented uncharted challenges. Police, fire, transit and waste management employees must quickly and safely negotiate streets that are far more congested than a decade ago.
Officials recognized that the accident rates of city vehicles were rising and decided to develop a city-owned-and-operated safe-driving course. Several years ago, the city set aside the necessary funding to move forward.
“Perhaps the most difficult part was getting approval for the $2.25 million construction contract,” says Jeff Furr, project manager for Charlotte. “The bids and beginning of construction happened to come at a very difficult budget time for the city. The city council rightfully scrutinized the expenditure and ultimately decided the long-term benefits justified the costs.”
While Charlotte police and fire officials began outlining the course, planners searched for a site. In 1997, the city funded a study of the feasibility and cost of a driving course. The study initially identified two potential sites for the project. Ultimately, topographical, locational and expense issues were the deciding factors that led to the selection of a city-owned property adjacent to its police and fire training academy.
“We had to get approval to rezone the property from residential to business,” Furr explains. “There was some opposition from residents, but not a lot because that area is not very heavily developed, yet. Although the facility should not create excessive noise, we added trees and other landscaping along the streets as vegetative buffers.”
The key challenge for the design team was to create a compact yet diverse training facility. Planners collected drawings of similar facilities and traveled to California to visit operations run by the Los Angeles Police Department and the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
Members of the construction team closely coordinated their activities and completed the facility within 12 months. The Charlotte office of Miami-based PBS&J provided general consulting services and helped design the course. Charlotte-based Ferebee was the general contractor.
In May 2003, Charlotte unveiled its driver-training facility. “I don’t know of any other municipal driver-training facility that offers a bigger bang for the buck,” Furr says. “The course offers all the features you need for adequate driver training, tightly arranged on 18 acres of land. Other than occasional pavement repairs, the maintenance requirements should be comparatively low due to its smaller size.”
The course, which measures 600 feet by 900 feet, consists of three areas. Urban Area 1 includes a serpentine road, a perimeter road around the site and roads that intersect. Urban Area 2, nicknamed “the runway,” is a concrete roadway that is 1,000 feet long and 80 feet wide. A 150-foot-wide-by-300-foot-long pavement T-bone intersects with the straightaway, together forming a large pad area on which city bus drivers and others can practice parking and maneuvers.
Urban Area 2 also includes a cul-de-sac, curbs and gutters like those found in most neighborhoods. A 5-inch concrete curb drop-off area creates a 300-foot stretch along the straightaway so drivers can learn how to regain control after running off the road. The final section of the course is the skid pad — about 250 feet long and 100 feet wide — used to teach skid control on a wet surface.
To maximize safety, training staff will develop a safety procedures manual, and the facility will incorporate a system of red and green strobe lights spread across the course. If there is an accident of any type, the trainers will activate the red lights and all exercises will halt immediately.
Over time, the center may serve as a regional training center for other entities. Mecklenburg County, Medic and other smaller cities in the region, as well as private companies, have expressed interest in using the driving course.
Charlotte officials strongly believe that the driving course will lower vehicle collision-related claims. In fact, the city’s Risk Management Division allocated most of the funding used for the project. “As our accident rate declines and liability costs drop accordingly, we believe we’ll recoup the construction costs fairly quickly,” Furr says. The city anticipates a five-year return on the capital investment, according to Furr, and analysis indicates that should translate to about a 15 percent reduction in Charlotte’s annual accident costs.