roadway safety

Roadway Fatalities Rise as Safety Rule Enforcement Lags Behind

October 23, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The list of Congress-ordered safety rules continues to grow even in the midst of a rise in traffic fatalities from the coronavirus era.

Some of these safety rules are years overdue but could be the difference between life and death for many of the drivers on America’s roadways. According to a governor’s highway safety group, the United States is at the risk of having a “car crash epidemic” if some of these safety rules are not implemented soon.

At least 13 auto safety rules are currently past due and have remained so under the last three presidents, according to a review by the Associated Press regarding the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s rule-making. These rules include a rear seat belt reminder requirement that was initially passed by Congress in 2012 and that was set to be enforced by 2015.

The rear seat belt rule will now likely begin the regulatory process in January of 2022, although deadlines–even those assured by the federal court–have been missed frequently in the past. This seat belt rule is estimated to potentially save hundreds of lives annually.

Another rule yet to be passed is that of child car seats and their side-impact standards, which was originally expected to be passed back in 2014. Additionally, a rule requiring car manufacturers to keep safety defect records for at least a decade and to implement anti-ejection protection measures for large buses is still awaiting action.

“I think with safety records, companies shouldn’t dispose of things that can help determine the cause of injury or death,” said Levinson and Stefani’s Ken Levinson. “It can only help protect people down the road, so companies need to secure and maintain records that can be used to save lives–it seems obvious to me.”

Levinson also noted that so many of these things should just be common sense, and there shouldn’t be this much wait time in bringing them into regulation to keep people safe.

“The government shouldn’t have to require the maintaining of safety records, but clearly, companies aren’t saving these records for whatever reason, and it’s incumbent upon the government and other elected officials to make sure they keep these records to protect people in the future–women, children, men, and working people,” he said.

There are also plans in place to implement mandates regarding automatic emergency braking systems on both heavy trucks and passenger vehicles–NHTSA has promised that a national database documenting automated vehicle-related crashes is in the works, as are strict autonomous vehicle testing standards.

“Automatic emergency brakes are not that expensive, and they are able to save lives and should absolutely be required,” said Levinson. “Mandating them in new vehicles is a good thing for public safety and for all of us.”

In 2020, 38,680 people are estimated to have died in roadway crashes–the highest number since 2007. 8,730 additional people died in traffic crashes in the first quarter of 2021, which is a 10.5% increase from the same period in 2020 although overall vehicle miles driven dropped significantly during the pandemic.

Over half of all crash fatalities recorded in 2020 involved drivers or occupants who failed to wear a seat belt, and each year, over 800 people die in crashes when they have failed to wear a seat belt in the back seat.

Because of this, it’s clear that swift action in bringing these safety mandates to fruition can no longer be delayed.

“We all pay the price when injuries happen and when people fill up emergency rooms and ICUs in the hospital, especially when they’re taking up space for other people to be given proper medical treatment,” said Levinson. “Failure to mandate safety standards leads to rising healthcare costs, innocent people being harmed, a loss in productivity–there’s a number of reasons that are in the public interest to make sure that people are safe.”

Some states are indeed working to increase seat belt usage–Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut recently signed into effect a law requiring back-seat passengers over the age of 16 to wear a seat belt. Of course, passengers younger than 16 were already required to do so.

Still, we’re nowhere near where we should be in regards to federal safety standards, industry experts agree.

“I can’t say the U.S. regulator of the auto industry is at all on track,” said Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety president, Cathy Chase. “It’s time for them to move forward.”

Although Driving Decreased During Pandemic, Roadway Death Numbers Continue to Rise

September 22, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“We must address the tragic loss of life we saw on the roads in 2020 by taking a transformational and collaborative approach to safety,” said acting administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Steven Cliff.

His statement comes as new data estimates released in early September depict 8,730 car crash deaths occurring in 2021’s first quarter–an increase from the 7,900 deaths reported in the same period of time in 2020.

“These early estimates suggest the driving patterns and behaviors the agency reported 2020–which changed significantly from previous years–continue to prevail and that drivers who remained on the roads engaged in more risky behavior,” explained the NHTSA.

According to the agency, overall traffic deaths rose by 10.5% in 2021’s first three months, although the number of drivers on American roads decreased. The pandemic may have brought about fewer cars on the road, but dangerous behaviors, including speeding, saw a sharp increase during that time–and clearly, they continue to do so.

In fact, overall driving numbers dropped by around 14.9 billion miles–around 2.1%–as shown in preliminary Federal Highway Administration data, but the number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled rose to 1.26 in the beginning of 2021. This is an increase of 0.14 from the same period in 2020.

These numbers point to risky behaviors like driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, failing to wear seat belts, or excessive speeding–things that quickly become more common while roads began clearing up with fewer drivers having to make daily commutes.

“Everyone–including those who design, operate, build, and use the road system–shares responsibility for road safety,” Cliff added. “We are working closely with our safety partners to address risky driving behaviors such as speeding, impaired driving, and failing to buckle up.”

NHTSA’s report doesn’t portray truck-involved deaths specifically, but the number of truck fatalities is included in the figures depicting overall traffic statistics. Early estimates in 2020 showed that although traffic fatalities may have risen by 7%, truck-involved crash deaths themselves did drop by 2%.

“The stay-at-home orders started in mid-March 2020, followed by the first full month of stay-at-home measures that were in effect during April,” explained NHTSA in its report. “During May [of 2020], some states began to reopen in some way while almost all states partially reopened by June. After June, each state continued to adapt [its] local and statewide COVID-19 guidelines and assess specific reopening and potential re-closing efforts accordingly.”

Quarterly estimations of fatality rates and vehicle-miles traveled are divided into monthly estimates for 2020 and 2021 in order to determine the overall crash-related effects of the pandemic era, NHTSA explained.

In 2020, overall vehicle-miles traveled dropped by 13.2%, or 430.2 billion miles, although the fatality rate for that year was 1.37 fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled (an increase from 2019’s 1.11 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled).

“While Americans drive less in 2020 due the pandemic, NHTSA’s early estimates show that an estimated 38,680 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes–the largest projected number of fatalities since 2007,” said the agency in its report.

Because of the apparent rapid increase in reckless driving and its impacts, this year’s Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s Operation Safe Driver Week focused on speeding, despite overall traffic decreasing throughout the entirety of the pandemic. 2020’s road death rate rose by 24% from the year prior, although miles drive fell by 13%, according to preliminary estimates by the National Safety Council. Additionally, this death rate increase is estimated to be the highest year-over-year spike calculated by the council in nearly a century.

“The surge in motor vehicle crash fatalities must serve as an urgent call to action for Congress and the Biden administration,” said Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety president, Cathy Chase. “Requirements and performance standards for proven vehicle safety technology could be saving tens of thousands of lives each year. The needless deaths on our roads must–and can–be stopped.”

Roadway Lighting May Need Big Changes to Keep Drivers Safe, Researchers Say

September 17, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Roadway lighting and its effects on drivers may need to be the subject of new, extensive research, according to industry experts.

During a late-August webinar hosted by the Transportation Research Board, industry professionals discussed light-emitting diode roadway lighting-related studies depicting the effects of LED road lights on the overall alertness and sleep health of drivers. According to the study, night time melatonin tends to become suppressed in the short-term for drivers exposed to this kind of street lighting.

“What are the impacts of LED roadway lighting on driver sleep health and alertness?” asked the Transportation Research Board in a Tweet ahead of the discussion. “Presenters from VTTI and Jefferson University will discuss how LED [lighting] impacts drivers’ alertness and visibility.”

However, long-term effects, which have not been heavily focused on within these studies, may be prevalent in truck drivers who spend a majority of their days on the road, explained senior research associate at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s Division of Vehicle, Driver, and System Safety, Rajaram Bhagavathula.

In healthy drivers, researchers found that salivary melatonin is not largely decreased between the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 in the morning in regards to the acute effects of LED roadway lights. Additionally, LED lighting, high-pressure sodium fixtures, and zero roadway lighting did not cause any particular boost in driver alertness, they found.

However, how exactly to determine overall alertness in drivers isn’t necessarily black and white.

“As far as alertness, it’s a tricky thing,” said assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson university, John Hanifin. “The drivers all have different physiological and sleeping backgrounds. Knowing their schedule [and] knowing how well they slept in their last sleep episode–these all impact their [baselines].”

During tests on drivers in regards to alertness and sleep physiology, Bhagavathula and his team exposed drivers to different levels of light between the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 A.M. on a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute test track. There, all test participants were accompanied by someone else in the vehicle who would be able to take control if needed, as one participant did indeed end up falling asleep during the test.

All of the test vehicles had a variety of sensors implemented onboard, and levels of alertness in participants were determined based on lane position deviation, the amount of time their eyes closed within a three-minute period, and the quickness of their reaction times. During all roadway scenario testing, participants typically had their eyes closed for around 30% of the time.

“We’ve got all these things where we’re starting to impact the environment [and] the roadway,” said VTTI’s head of Infrastructure Based Safety Systems group, Ron Gibbons. “How do we control these light emissions so that we can maximize the benefit and put a number on these things?”

Gibbons previously worked on a study in which roadway lighting was tested regarding its effects on interstate night-to-day vehicle crash ratio decreases. The overarching goal of these studies, he said, is to determine what exactly is the most efficient level of roadway lighting, with the ideal level needing to take into account energy consumption, light pollution impacts, the environment itself, and overall roadway driver safety.

The effects of varying kinds of light on drivers as they operate vehicles can be made extremely efficient, even helpful–as long as the right amount of light is utilized in the best possible locations and time of day, Bhagavathula explained. Additionally, he believes that adaptive lighting may be the best solution, as this kind of roadway lighting can be dimmed or changed when not in use.

In fact, it is “important to consider light as medicine,” he added. “You’d not only get energy benefits [from proper light usage], but also [you would be] reducing environmental impact.”

Moving forward, research must focus upon plasma melatonin in drivers as opposed to salivary melatonin, Bhagavathula noted. However, plasma melatonin collection is likely to be much more difficult as it requires the collection of blood (in this case, in a moving vehicle) instead of the collection of saliva.