There are a variety of things the states and the federal government do to try to keep the nation’s roads safe. One is to issue various regulations aimed at crash prevention. Another is to issue traffic safety goals, and to initiate campaigns directed toward the achievement of such goals. Recently, the federal government set a goal that is quite large and ambitious.
This goal is to bring traffic deaths down to zero in the next 30 years. This joint goal of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the safety advocacy group the National Safety Council was announced last week.
There would be quite a long ways to go for this goal to be achieved. Traffic deaths are currently very far away from zero. In 2015, there were over 35,000 fatalities out on America’s roads. And recently, motor vehicle accident deaths have been trending up, not down.
A major traffic safety campaign is being started in relation to this goal. It is called the “Road to Zero.” The campaign will promote various accident prevention measures (from infrastructure developments, to efforts to alter driver behavior, to enforcement). It will also be looking into what strategies are most effective in bringing traffic deaths down. The federal government has thus far committed $1 million towards the campaign’s goals.
What overall impacts do you think this campaign will have on motor vehicle accident levels and safety out on U.S. roads? How close to zero traffic deaths do you think we can get here in America over the next three decades?
While one hopes we will someday live in a world with no traffic fatalities, that certainly is not the world we live in now. Many U.S. families end up dealing with the horror of having a loved one taken from them out on the roads. When facing this harrowing situation, a family may want to enlist the help of a skilled attorney to help ensure their legal rights are properly protected.
Source: The Detroit News, “Feds seek to eliminate traffic deaths in 30 years,” Keith Laing, Oct. 5, 2016
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