U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Plan to Reduce Traffic Deaths
February 2, 2022
In January of this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a five-step plan to reduce the number of traffic deaths that occur each year. Continue reading to learn more about this new initiative and the results they expect to achieve.
What’s the New Five-Step Plan?
The new plan is called the National Roadway Safety Strategy, and in short, it aims to reduce the effects of driving errors by providing supplemental educational efforts, better care for accident victims, safer roadway designs, and improved vehicular technology.
The plan comes on the heels of the rising total of traffic fatalities that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite there being fewer cars on the road. According to Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, the growing number of deaths is a “national crisis,” with the ultimate goal to be eliminating all of them moving forward.
Back in October of 2021, Buttigieg said that the Department of Transportation would be dedicating itself to creating this strategy after learning that road fatalities reached an all-time high in the second quarter of 2021. According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which began tracking traffic deaths in 1975, there was an 18.4% spike in deaths in the first half of the year compared to 2020.
What’s Causing This Record-Breaking Spike?
During the pandemic, drivers started engaging in more reckless behaviors since there weren’t as many cars on the road. This included excessive speeding, and texting, as well as a decrease in the number of seat belts that were routinely worn. This ultimately resulted in an increase in significant bodily injuries.
Details About the Infrastructure Bill
If President Biden’s new $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill is passed, the new traffic safety program will have access to $6 billion dollars over the next five years to help eliminate dangerous road situations through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, as well as an additional $4 billion to improve highway safety. Furthermore, another $4 billion will be allocated to improve crash data and vehicle behavior.
The National Highway Safety Council (NHSC) advocated for the bill. According to Lorraine Martin, President, and CEO of the National Highway Safety Council, “the NSC has long advocated for the importance of a Safe System approach and applauds the department’s aggressive plan to reverse the alarming trends in roadway fatalities we’ve seen in recent years.”
So far, the NHSC has plans to increase their Safe Driving Toolkit aimed at improving child safety by 25%, as well as encouraging teen driver safety by sending home materials to 4,000 homes.
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