The president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has called for new approach to tackle the ‘deadly’ problem of speeding.
An estimated 43,000 people were killed on US roads in 2021, an increase on 2020, which was also an increase on the previous year.
“Fatal crashes jumped during the pandemic, but we have been trending in the wrong direction for several years,” said president of the IIHS, David Harkey.
“Even as other countries make progress toward eliminating road deaths.
“Since 2014, when the US had fewer than 33,000 fatalities, we’ve seen a 31 percent increase in lives lost on our roadways.”
Mr Harkey said The Safe System approach — a framework that has been adopted by countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden and was recently included in the US Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy — can jump-start progress.
“We should begin by applying it to one of our deadliest problems: speed,” he said.
“The Safe System idea is simple: At its most basic, it acknowledges that humans make mistakes and, when they do, the results should not be fatal. In this framework, redundancy is key; if one part of the system fails, others can still prevent crashes or mitigate the consequences.
“We can apply this framework to all aspects of road safety, but speed is a logical issue to target first, both because it is a huge part of what makes US roads so dangerous and because we have a basket of proven solutions to address it.”
“Tackling our speed addiction — with comprehensive plans designed and implemented at the local, state and federal levels — is the perfect place to start.”
