While highway fatalities dropped significantly in 2009, American highways can be made safer, the director of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee recently.
"There is no more important issue than highway safety, and heightening the awareness of highway safety is of utmost importance," said Kirk Steudle, MDOT director and chairman of AASHTO's Standing Committee on Highway Traffic Safety. "Nationwide, 33,963 Americans perished in traffic collisions in 2009, a drop of 9% from 2008. While this is excellent news, we need to continue our progress in reducing highway fatalities."
State transportation departments are using federal funds to implement effective solutions designed to drive down fatalities, he told the committee. In 2010, MDOT will spend nearly $70 million on roadway safety including signage improvements, pavement markings, modernizing signalized intersections and installing cable median barriers.
"These kinds of expenditures have helped us to reduce highway fatalities on Michigan roadways to 871 in 2009," Steudle said, “the lowest number since 1924, when fatalities were 863.”
In May 2007, AASHTO's board of directors adopted a national goal of reducing traffic deaths by half over two decades. This would translate into saving 1,000 lives per year over a 20-year period.
"We know that together we can work to accomplish this ambitious but vital goal," Steudle said.
AASHTO recommends a series of bold Congressional actions:
- National Agenda on Highway Safety: Congress should adopt a national goal of reducing traffic deaths by half over two decades;
- Highway Safety Funding: Congress should increase the flexibility and level of funding for all safety programs equal to increases in the other core programs' funding to meet the national safety goal;
- Strategic Highway Safety Plan Continuation: Congress should continue the requirement that states develop and implement strategic highway safety plans consistent with their long-range transportation planning and short-range programming processes;
- Highway Safety Data Collection and Sharing: AASHTO is requesting Congress provide $20 million per year to enhance NHTSA's State Data System;
- Highway Safety Laws and Adjudication: Congress should support a national effort, led by NHTSA, to develop and recommend model laws and best practices to the states on ways to drive down traffic deaths, including rigorous enforcement and adjudication of those laws;
- Safety Improvement in Vehicles: Congress should encourage more expeditious deployment of technical safety improvements in vehicles through federal incentives and regulatory and research-and-development initiatives;
- Highway Safety Research, Development and Technology: Congress should increase funding for safety research, development and technology and expand the coordination among research entities; and
- Safety Improvement in Drivers: Congress should provide $5 million to modernize the Commercial Driver Licensing Information System. In addition, $14 million in General Fund support is needed for the Department of Homeland Security for the information hub to allow motor-vehicle agencies to implement a "One Driver, One License" system.
