(Click on the image for the Consumer Reports article)
- Automakers and regulators have worked to make cars and driving safer for more than 50 years. So why aren’t U.S. highway fatalities going down? People are driving more miles than in the past, but that doesn’t explain the increase entirely. Transportation experts say the industry and others, such as government road designers, safety regulators, and drivers, could be doing more to bring the number down.
- “There’s still so much safety tech on the shelf, and too many people are overconfident about their driving,” says David Friedman, vice president of advocacy at Consumer Reports. “The fundamental cultural question is: Why do we tolerate this many highway fatalities?”
- The promise of self-driving cars is so exciting because the technology could significantly reduce traffic deaths. More than 9 of every 10 serious crashes are linked to driver error, according to NHTSA. In theory, a robot-driven car doesn’t fall asleep or get drunk. It doesn’t make human mistakes.
- A poorly designed road can escalate a small error into a fatality. Traffic engineers know that a minor change in the sweep of a curve or an unclear road sign can have an impact on safety. For this reason, dozens of cities in the U.S. are completely rethinking road design with safety top of mind.
- It’s no mystery that driver mistakes contribute to highway crashes and injuries. Drunken driving, speeding, and failing to wear a seat belt are three major reasons. Sometimes drivers engage in more than one of these risky behaviors at the same time. Each contributes to about 10,000 traffic deaths per year.
- Human behavior remains the most common contributor to crashes, but it’s also the hardest to change.
- We persist in accepting the status quo because we see it as normal. We need to change our expectations, and break out of our complacency.