On average, 42,075 people die on our roads every year, while 170,280 people are injured. Industry opposition. Regulatory capture. A lack of a sense of urgency or personal responsibility. These and other factors occur simultaneously — resulting in Too Little being done Too Late to prevent an unimaginable number of irreversible tragedies for those people and their loved ones.
It’s time to give vulnerable victims of vehicle violence a vigilant voice at the table. It’s time for a National Roadway Safety Advocate to serve the public’s best interests at the Department of Transportation. That’s why Senator Ben Ray Lujan (on May 9, 2024), and Congressman Steve Cohen (on May 10, 2024) introduced the DOT Victim & Survivor Advocate Act of 2024 — as a first step to provide safety advocates with a tangible means of bringing about meaningful change in a timely manner.
Reach out to your Members of Congress, using their online contact forms. Ask them to cosponsor and pass this bill: U.S. Senators – This link provides contact information for your U.S. Senators. U.S. Representatives – This link provides website and contact information for your Representative. Find your Representative by zip here.
Inaction by federal traffic safety agencies, who are fiercely and disproportionately influenced by industry pressure, has left all road users at risk. As a follow-up to the PBS/Frontline truck underride documentary, on June 22, ProPublica published an article which has exposed the depth of this regulatory capture and the powerlessness of safety activists to bring about change.
If I hadn’t already been aware of most of the details of this report, I might have had a hard time believing it was for real. I’m curious what you think of it. It’s a long read, but worth it!
“The Department of Transportation allowed trucking lobbyists to review an unpublished report recommending a safety device that could save lives by preventing pedestrians and cyclists from getting crushed under large trucks. . .
But that recommendation generated intense resistance, both internally, from department officials who challenged their findings, and externally, from trucking industry lobbyists. . .
If that disturbs you (and it’s just the tip of the iceberg), please sign the petition for a National Roadway Safety Ombudsman so that this kind of regulatory capture doesn’t continue to happen:
It’s time to turn the tide and demand that vulnerable victims of vehicle violence be given a vigilant voice at the table. It’s time for a National Roadway Safety Ombudsman to serve the public’s best interests at the Department of Transportation.
I’m grateful that the U.S. Department of Transportation announced their National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) on January 27, 2022. Like others, I’ve waited a long time to hear that news.
“We cannot tolerate the continuing crisis of roadway deaths in America. These deaths are preventable, and that’s why we’re launching the National Roadway Safety Strategy today – a bold, comprehensive plan, with significant new funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “We will work with every level of government and industry to deliver results, because every driver, passenger, and pedestrian should be certain that they’re going to arrive at their destination safely, every time.” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Announces Comprehensive National Roadway Safety Strategy, January 27, 2022
While U.S. DOT has many tools at its disposal and will shoulder our responsibility, this must be a coordinated effort with our stakeholders across the public sector, private sector, advocacy, and research communities. National Roadway Safety Strategy, USDOT, January 2022
On the other hand, I heard strikingly similar rhetoric when Secretary Foxx spoke about the Toward Zero Deaths initiative in March 2015, as well as when NHTSA launched the Road to Zero Coalition in partnership with the National Safety Council on October 5, 2016 (more than a year after we launched our Vision Zero Petition). Here are some relevant quotes:
“We embrace the vision of Toward Zero Deaths; it provides an overarching and common vision that drives and focuses our efforts to achieve our shared goal to eliminate injuries and fatalities on our roadways,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “The U.S. Department of Transportation will do our part by aggressively using all tools at our disposal – research into new safety systems and technologies, campaigns to educate the public, investments in infrastructure and collaboration with all of our government partners to support strong laws and data-driven approaches to improve safety.” AASHTO introduces Toward Zero Deaths Plan to reduce roadway fatalities, 3/10/2015
Deja vu. And what has changed? In any case, here we are. So let’s talk about how the NRSS could be applied to a specific traffic safety issue — truck underride. One Safe System principle included in the NRSS is Redundancy:
Redundancy is Crucial. Reducing risks requires that all parts of the transportation system be strengthened, so that if one part fails, the other parts still protect people.
The Safe System Approach emphasizes that redundancy is critical, and safer roadways mean incorporating design elements that offer layers of protection to prevent crashes from occurring and mitigate harm when they do occur.
This sounds exactly like the combination of crash avoidance technologies (along with improving driver behavior) to prevent crashes from happening, plus underride protection to reduce injuries when crashes do occur. In fact, I’ve previously written about that very topic:
The reality is that crash avoidance technologies cannot prevent all crashes. Even though crash avoidance technologies may be able to reduce speed at impact, they doesn’t necessarily prevent a collision from happening in every instance. In fact, when collisions do occur between a passenger vehicle and a large truck — even at 15 mph — they will likely result in deadly underride and Passenger Compartment Intrusion unless effective underride protection has been installed on the truck.
The NRSS uses the word zero 16 times, including here:
Zero is the only acceptable number of deaths on our highways, roads, and streets. The United States Department of Transportation is committed to taking substantial, comprehensive action to significantly reduce serious and fatal injuries on the Nation’s roadways.
U.S. DOT recognizes the Safe System Approach as encompassing all the roadway safety interventions required to achieve the goal of zero fatalities, including safety programs focused on infrastructure, human behavior, responsible oversight of the vehicle and transportation industry, and emergency response.
Therefore, I will expectantly draw the conclusion that the redundancy principle and the goal of zero fatalities will spur the US DOT to carry out their responsibility to oversee the transportation industry and thereby issue comprehensive underride protection rulemaking — front, side, & rear, on both tractor-trailers and Single Unit Trucks. To do otherwise is hypocrisy.
Will it be necessary for me to continue to ask the question: Is every death unacceptable? Were my daughters’ lives considered worth saving — along with countless other victims of Death By Underride? Is #ZeroTrafficDeaths meaningless rhetoric? Or, is it possible that I can count on the Department of Transportation to prioritize the saving of lives by issuing comprehensive underride rulemaking in which cost benefit analysis is no longer weighted in favor of industry?
Likewise, can I expect when NHTSA is informed of potential safety defects that they will proceed with formal investigations — no matter how many deaths and serious injuries have been reported?
