In the midst of a surge in U.S. traffic fatalities, a vehicle safety testing agency is calling for a target of 30% reduction by the next decade.
Acknowledging that a zero-fatality goal that many countries, U.S. communities and even some automakers have targeted, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is shooting for the more realistic number and calling on others to join it.
“We are asking everyone who cares about reducing the tragic toll of motor vehicle crashes to unite around this idea,” IIHS President David Harkey said in a notice about the initiative.
He recognized the strides the U.S. has made in making roads safer since the federal government started more closely tracking fatalities in 1975, when there were 20 traffic deaths per 100,000 population. By 2014, that had fallen by half to 10, Harkey said, but in the years since the pandemic the number started to go back up, reaching about 13 per 100,000 in 2022.
IIHS posed several ideas to help cut the rate back down, along with other incremental measures: cutting speed limits and introducing speed-management on more roads, promoting seat belt wearing and stricter seat belt laws, cutting the legal blood-alcohol limit to 0.05% in a few more states to follow Utah, which adopted the stricter threshold in 2018, and passing all-rider helmet laws in states with high motorcycle death rates.
The nonprofit organization, for its part, said it will develop programs and seek partnerships with other groups to increase road safety . It also plans to add bicyclist scenarios to its vehicle crash testing, along with expanding pedestrian situation testing, since fatalities are rising faster among those groups.
