With road deaths up 20% in 2021 over the year prior, the U.S. Department of Transportation is currently holding strategy sessions to curb the trend, which has seen such fatalities increase, particularly across the West and the South.
As part of the early discussions, DOT officials are reported to have considered drastic changes, including talk about revisions to federal roadway safety policy.
Over the first six-months of the year, roadways deaths were reported up by a staggering 18.4% compared to the same period last year. Research also shows that the surge has largely been caused by increased rates of speeding, which spiked on quarantine-emptied roads but have remained consistent even as Americans returned to their regular, daily driving commutes.
Analysts also suspect that rising pools of remote workers may have permanently shifted travel patterns across the country, lessening rush hour traffic, while spreading faster-than-usual, more reckless traffic patterns at the same time.
Changing patterns or not, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is pulling out all the stops in an effort to make sure the rising death toll does not become the new normal for roadways across the country.
“We cannot and should not accept these fatalities as simply a part of everyday life in America,” Buttigieg told GreaterGreaterWashington.com. “No one will accomplish this alone. It will take all levels of government, industries, advocates, engineers and communities across the country working together toward the day when family members no longer have to say goodbye to loved ones because of a traffic crash.”
Part of the government’s new strategy includes the promise of “the department’s first national roadway safety strategy, (which will include) a comprehensive set of actions to significantly reduce serious injuries and deaths on our nation’s roadways,” DOT said.
With final particulars of the new plan set to be revealed in 2022, exact details on how state and local leaders will be held accountable for implementing the policies remain scarce. Agency officials, however, vow that it “will be rooted in the Safe System Approach principles and identifies significant actions the department will take to help ensure safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and post-crash care.”
