Today, I watched some of  the live streaming of NHTSA’s conference, Driving Behavioral Change in Traffic Safety. As I listened to the various speakers and panel discussions, many thoughts and questions went through my mind. . .

Driving Behavioral Change in Traffic Safety Conference being Livestreamed at DOT

The basic question is: What will it take to make a significant reduction in the number of people who die on our roads?

• It will take all of us working together.
• It will take facing the problem head on.
• It will take acknowledging that there is a problem–and the full extent of it.
• It will take recognizing that we are all a part of the problem.
• It will take talking about it openly.
• It will take understanding that crash deaths are not just an expected risk of driving on the road but are to a great extent preventable.
• It will take accepting that risky driver behavior is not a personal right but a violation of other people’s right to be protected from reckless behavior.
• It will take calling risky driver behavior what it is: RECKLESS.
• It will take classifying a vehicle as a weapon and reckless driver behavior as an act of violence.
• It will take enacting laws that prohibit a full range of reckless driving behaviors and then enforcing those laws with stiff consequences.
• It will take understanding  that changing personal behavior is not the only way to reduce crash deaths and learning how to work with others who are addressing vehicle and environment risk factors.
• It will take recognizing and embracing that preventing crashes from happening is not the only thing which needs to be addressed but that we can also reduce the severity of those crashes so that death is not the end result.
• It will take manufacturers and employers and consumers and law enforcement and engineers and countless others to recognize how their individual decisions and actions contribute to not just crash statistics but to the unnatural ending (or saving) of life for people with names and faces and hopes and dreams and other people who care about them whose lives will be changed forever.
• And it will take us all realizing that someday soon one of those names and faces could very well be ourselves or someone whom we love and will miss dreadfully. And that it could have been prevented.
• It will take listening to the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones due to traffic crashes and apologizing, as a society, for letting them down–for not addressing it as the priority it should be. Bringing healing and hope that their frustrations and anger and grief are being heard and that their petitions for change are being taken seriously. Giving them a voice and channeling their zealous energy in positive ways which can in fact be a powerful tool for changing the future and moving us more surely Toward Zero Crash Deaths, Serious Injuries, and Fear of Traffic.
• And beyond that, I firmly believe that, in order to move as a nation Toward a Vision of Zero Crash Deaths, it will take take a commitment to a National Vision Zero Goal and a coordinated endeavor of government, private industry, workers of every skill imaginable, and informed citizens. Anything short of this will be disjointed and less effective, which translates into — not simply unmet project goals but — people dying. It is not an impossible dream but it will require sacrifice and will be well worth the effort.

I kept writing down  ideas as they came to me during the various presentations and discussions and emailing them to the event coordinator. I did not hear my questions being addressed. But I am going to record them (in their raw intensity) here: