Drivers are not the only ones to blame for roadway fatalities.
That's the crux of a review article in the New England Journal of Medicine written by a pair of Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) researchers invited to share their insights on the strategies aimed at progressing toward a future with zero traffic deaths.
Utilizing publicly available data, research publications, and their own expertise, Charlie Klauer and Zac Doerzaph evaluated the safety treatments and countermeasures that apply to what is known as the Safe System Approach, a framework that broadly embraces the concept that road users are not solely responsible for safety and transportation designers, operators, policymakers, administrators, and health care professionals all have a role to play.
"We want to see a future where the movement of people and goods is seamless and cost effective, where efficiency and equity are paramount, and where transportation is resilient by design," said Doerzaph, the institute's executive director. "A Safe System Approach to transportation lays the foundation for this future by removing the largest barrier to success, the senseless killing of the human users of the transportation system."
In their article, Klauer and Doerzaph wrote that safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and post-crash care are the main pillars of a Safe Systems Approach in the United States. Their analysis concluded that universally adopting the approach could support a future without roadway fatalities, but its success would depend on full commitment from all stakeholders and rethinking what it means to be safe.
Dozeraph said that countries that have adopted frameworks comparable to a Safe System Approach are realizing a large degree of success.
"Countermeasures based on technology, policy, education, and enforcement remain necessary to eliminate high-risk driver behaviors for all ages and create safer drivers. It is also imperative that we be creative in how we implement safety for all road users and that starts with safe speeds, roadway design and ensuring that road users are not in completely unforgiving environments," said Klauer, a research scientist at the institute and associate professor in the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
Some of the suggestions the researchers concluded would help make roadways safer include:
- The expansion of driver training programs and technologies to reduce the impacts of distracted and impaired driving
- Legislation and guidance related to designing safer roads, such as accommodating for driver error and the emergence of automated systems, increased adoption of safer roadway design to maintain safe speeds, and the vehicle-to-everything safety communication applications
- Incorporating active safety features such as automatic emergency braking, driver monitoring systems, and backup cameras into vehicles
- Additional speed limit and roadway regulation from high visibility law enforcement personnel
- An expanded post-crash health care network, specifically in rural areas, that includes training and rapid responses
In 2021, 42,939 fatalities and 2,497,657 injuries were reported on U.S. highways, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Death at this level approaches the equivalent of a typical commercial place crashing into the ground every day.
"We must all support and advocate for safety on our roadways to meet the goal of zero fatalities and injuries, not in our great grandchildren's lifetimes, but in our lifetime," Klauer said.
