More than 11 million crashes take place on U.S. roads every year, resulting in more than 2.5 million police-reported injuries and more than 40,000 deaths.

Unfortunately, most of the serious crashes taking place on our roads today are not truly accidents. Rather, they are the direct result of failed highway safety policies -- policies that actually encourage and promote dangerous, irresponsible driving.

The Partnership for Safe Driving is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Americans about all forms of dangerous driving and halting the epidemic of motor vehicle crashes in our society. Founded in February 1997 and headquartered in Washington, DC, we are working to change the driving culture in America through education, research, and grassroots activism.

Crash Prevention News and Opinion ...

Insurance Prices Follow the Stock Market, Not the Crash Rates!

Source: The New York Times
Link: Driving Is Down, but Auto Insurance Rates Are Rising
Published:  August 23, 2008

 It's hard to believe that stories like this continue to be printed in the mainstream media, but today The New York Times is running a story in which the reporter scratches her head in apparent bewilderment. "How come auto insurance rates are going up while driving, and presumably crashing, is going down?" she ponders.

 She then proceeds to pose this question to a number of "experts," who compete with each other to see who can provide the most illogical response.

Meanwhile, the truth is visible to see for all who actually follow the trends from year to year. Namely, auto insurance rates have absolutely nothing to do with crash rates. They have everything to do with the stock market. When the stock market goes up, insurance rates decline. When the stock market goes down, insurance rates go up.

This is because auto insurance companies make and spend the bulk of your premium dollars in the stock market. Very little of the money you give to your insurance company actually goes to pay out claims from crashes. One estimate is as little as 5 percent.

The crash rate, while it may have declined slightly as a result of less driving, remains extraordinarily high. But again, this has nothing to do with auto insurance rates. Insurance companies make it their business to pay out as little as possible to their policyholders (and their policyholder's victims), regardless of how many crashes occur in a given year or how much they collect in premiums.

Instead, they take your premium dollars and invest them on Wall Street. That is the business of auto insurance companies. The money that they make on Wall Street goes into their own pockets, not yours. Even when you file legitimate claims, and even when your insurance company is flush with cash, they will do everyhing possible to avoid paying out large claims, such as those that result from critical injuries and death.

So it should be little wonder to anyone that, even as gas prices shoot through the roof and Americans drive billions of miles less per month, auto insurance rates are going up, not down.

Look for rates to continue their upward climb as insurance companies exploit your pocketbook to cover their losses, not on the roads, but on Wall Street.

For more information on this and many other paradoxes of auto insurance, pick up a copy of "It's No Accident: The Real Story Behind Senseless Death & Injury On Our Roads." (Available here.)

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DOT Says: We're Completely Satisfied With Complete Failure

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation
Link: 2007 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment – Highlights
Published:  August 14, 2008

 The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) released the 2007 highway fatality data today. Once again, more than 40,000 people were killed in sudden, violent, preventable motor vehicle crashes on U.S. roads.

 The DOT chose to celebrate this tragic news. Newspapers and radio stations across the country took the DOT's cue, parroting the agency's press release about "record lows."

Here is what the Associated Press reported:

"Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade... Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,600 from 2006...

"Thanks to safer vehicles, aggressive law enforcement and our efforts, countless families were spared the devastating news that a loved one was not coming home," said Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.

The Partnership for Safe Driving is always happy to hear about fewer deaths on our highways, and several states did indeed appear to show statistically significant declines. These include Delaware, Arizona, Rhode Island, and New Mexico. Overall, however, the reduction in fatalities was less than 1 percent -- hardly worth celebrating. While 1,600 fewer families were spared a tragic death on the roads, 41,059 were not spared.

It will be difficult, if not impossible, to rally the public in support of the type of radical reforms that are needed in order to produce true and lasting changes on our roads as long as government officials continue to release propaganda, year in and year out, about what a wonderful job they are doing and how much safer the roads are becoming.

We can only hope that people are paying more attention to the horrifying news they see repeated day in and day out in their local media than to a press release from the federal government.

We can only hope...

For a full copy of the DOT report, click on the link above.

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Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Source: WTOP
Link: Little progress made in bridge repairs across US
Published:  July 31, 2008

 An investigation by the Associated Press reveals that one year after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in recent history, two out of every three of the nation's busiest bridges with structural deficiencies have had no work beyond regular maintenance.

The AP investigation found that only 12 percent of each state's 20 most-traveled bridges with structural deficiencies have been fixed. In most states, government officials are merely planning for repairs in the future rathering than fixing the problems now. Lack of funding is cited as the main excuse for not making the necessary repairs now.

 We sympathize with local and state governments that are facing serious budget shortfalls during these difficult economic times. However, repairing structural deficiencies in our bridges should be considered a top priority in every state. Failing to do so is inexcusable.

Engingeers say part of the problem stems from the amount of wear and tear these bridges are enduring. This is due to 1) the volume of traffic; 2) the speed of traffic; and 3) the weight of the vehicles.

In the absence of funding for repairing bridges, excessive wear and tear could be reduced immediately, without requiring large expenditures.

First, the volume of traffic could be controlled by any number of means, including using traffic signals to control the number of vehicles on a bridge at one time and/or re-routing traffic to other, more structurally sound bridges.

Second, the speed limit on bridges could be lowered and enforced using photo enforcement technology. There is no rational reason to continue allowing motorists to fly over these structurally deficient bridges at 60, 70 and 80 mph.

Third, the weight of individual vehicles allowed on these bridges could and should be regulated. This might entail prohibiting longer combination vehicles and tractor trailers over a specific weight. Since these are among the most dangerous vehicles on our roads today, prohibiting their use on bridges might help to diminish their popularity among shipping companies.

The Partnership is calling on our national, state and local leaders to take action immediately to prevent further damage to our nation's bridges while working quickly to secure the necessary funds for repairs.

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False Hopes Persist for Electronic Stability Control

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Link: Statement of Nicole Nason, Administrator of NHTSA, on ESC
Published:  July 29, 2008

 Earlier this summer, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reiterated its false hope in Electronic Stability Control (ESC) as another silver bullet technology, capable of reducing fatalities on the roads by thousands annually.

Specifically, NHTSA was lauding a decision by a United Nation's auto safety forum to adopt ESC systems as a worldwide regulation for all new light passenger vehicles.

"Electronic stability control systems are second only to seat belts in terms of the potential for saving lives and reducing injuries," said NHTSA Adminstrator Nicole Nason.

 The Partnership certainly is not opposed to any technology that can help maintain stability in a vehicle. However, NHTSA has grossly exaggerated the benefits of this technology, just as it has always done with seatbelts.

NHTSA estimates that ESC already has penetrated 30 percent of the U.S. fleet. Yet, based on our own preliminary analysis of the 2007 fatality data, there was once again no statistically significant reduction in fatalities on U.S. roads.

As for technology that could truly reduce fatalities on the roads by thousands annually, one need look no further than speed governors, which are already installed in all vehicles sold in the U.S. For some unexplained reason, the agency refuses to regulate speed governor settings on automobiles, trucks and buses. This leaves the irresponsible vehicle manufacturers free to set the governors, which regulate the maximum speed capability of a vehicle, at anywhere between 100 and 160 mph. The result is thousands of serious crashes annually at speeds that are not just unsafe but illegal anywhere in the nation.

ESC combined with a safe, rational, maximum speed governor setting could indeed prevent thousands of death annually. Continuing to try to reduce fatalities without regulating speed governor settings will only continue to produce disappointing results.

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Safety a Question Mark as Ford Opts for Smaller Cars

Source: The New York Times
Link: The Road Ahead for Ford Is Full of Smaller Cars
Published:  July 24, 2008

 As Ford Motor Company reels from record losses this quarter, its leadership is announcing plans today for a huge shift away from SUVs and pick-up trucks toward small cars. While this will certainly save consumers money on gasoline and help the nation conserve fuel, the safety questions raised by this shift are so far being ignored -- by local, state, and federal governments, consumer groups, and the auto companies themselves.

 Speed limits are a case in point. When the national 55 speed limit was repealed by President Clinton in 1995, many safety groups predicted that the already-staggering number of fatalities -- more than 40,000 annually -- would go through the roof. But that didn't happen. The number of annual fatalities continued to hover around 40,000 annually. Critics of the national speed limit pointed to this as evidence that higher speed limits are not more dangerous.

Those critics failed to factor into the equation that right around the same time the national speed limit was repealed, the nation began trending toward much bigger vehicles.

While the U.S. Department of Transportation continually credits seatbelts with saving thousands of lives on our roads, the agency's own data show that the size of the vehicle is often a much bigger factor in whether occupants survive a crash than the use of seatbelts. The data indicate that passengers in small vehicles are anywhere between two and eight times more likely to die in a crash than passengers in larger vehicles, depending upon the weight of the vehicle, what it hits, the speed at impact, and other circumstances of the crash. This is true regardless of whether the vehicle occupants are belted or unbelted.

So, while smaller vehicles may be good for conserving energy and protecting the environment, they are not good for protecting passengers in a crash with larger vehicles. If the current speeds are maintained, and the number of crashes remains constant, the number of fatalities could rise dramatically as consumers switch to small cars.

The Partnership for Safe Driving believes it is urgent that the government begin taking action immediately to protect passengers in smaller vehicles. This includes regulating the maximum speed governor setting on cars, lowering speed limits on all types of roads and enforcing those limits, banning the use of cell phones and text-messaging while driving, enforcing agressive driver laws, separating car and truck traffic wherever possible (including restricting trucks to the right lane of multi-lane roads), strictly regulating the licensing and hours of service of truck drivers, and other measures as outlined in "Our Advocacy" on this website.

The clock is ticking.

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