Highway safety advocates: States need to do more

Jan 26, 2009

State governments must do more to improve highway safety through legislation, National Transportation Safety Board members have urged.

During a Nov. 25 press conference, NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker reviewed state governments' one-year progress on adopting recommendations from the board's "Most Wanted" list of transportation safety improvements. Rosenker said more needs to be done before certain items can be removed from the list. Those items include improving child occupant protection, enacting primary seat belt laws, eliminating distractions for young drivers and enhancing recreational boating safety.

In related news, the Emergency Nurses Association released its 2008 National Scorecard on State Roadway Laws (.pdf file). Des Plaines, IL-based ENA ranks states on 13 types of legislation, including seat belt use, child passenger safety, graduated driver licensing and drunk driving restrictions. A summary (.pdf file) of the scorecard shows Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota scored the lowest, while Oregon and Washington received the best possible score.

Meanwhile, a report (.pdf file) from the Government Accountability Office stated more work needs to be done to address data limitations and better align funding for state highway safety improvements.

The report looked at strategic highway safety plans in 25 states that address elements added by the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). It concluded that progress on safety efforts is limited by a lack of crash data and analysis capabilities, and that states cannot conduct safety analyses on some of their most hazardous public roads because they do not operate or maintain them. States also are provided with a significant amount of funding for rail-highway crossing improvements in areas where few fatalities take place, the report found.