wo U.S. agencies are combining their efforts to bring new levels of safety to public roadways.
With buyers
increasingly interested in walkable communities and
self-driving cars edging their wayonto public streets, the National Safety Council is rolling out Road to Zero, designed with the U.S. Department of Transportation and over 600 industry groups. Road to Zero's goal is to eliminate traffic deaths by 2050.
A recent report by the RAND Corp. lays out recommendations for a national strategy to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians alike. “Our study is forward-thinking and a bit speculative,” says Liisa Ecola, one of the authors of the report. “If it’s 2050 now and there are no deaths—what is it that happened over the last 30 to 40 years to get us to this point?”
While there are 6 million crashes in the U.S. annually, only 0.5 percent are fatal. But recent years have seen a sharp increase in fatalities, with 5,000 more deaths in 2016 than in 2011.
Some cities, including New York and San Francisco, have implemented ideas from Vision Zero, an ad hoc group working to eliminate traffic deaths, Road to Zero is the first national strategy intended to standardize lifesaving improvements for American roads.
Source: "U.S. sets a nationwide goal to end traffic deaths by 2050," Curbed.com (April 25, 2018)
