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States Struggle to Cut Highway Fatality Rate

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

September 20, 2006

Auto Safety • Teen Misjudgment Major Factor in Highway Accidents • New Auto Safety Legislation Aims to Protect Children • Insurance Group: Supersport Motorcycles Deadly • Feds Consider Tougher Auto Safety Ratings • Congress Urged to Protect Children from Vehicle Deaths • Motorcycle Death Rates Rising, Safety Chief Warns • Feds to Require Additional Minivan Door Latch • Survey: Teens Still Driving Dangerously • Feds Propose Recorders to Monitor Truckers' Hours • Feds Propose New Auto Safety Tests • Consumers Choosing Tiny Cars Despite Safety Risks • IIHS: Bigger is Better in Car Safety • NHTSA's Dirty Little Secrets • Feds Find Backup Sensors Ineffective • Simpler Dashboards Might Make Cars Safer • States Struggle to Cut Highway Fatality Rate • Ford Makes Stability Control Standard for 2009 • Feds Require Safety Info on New Car Window Stickers • Motorcycle, Pedestrian Deaths Rising • Safer Cars, Not Safer Drivers, Reducing Highway Deaths • Former Lobbyist in Driver's Seat at NHTSA • Must-Have Safety and Convenience Features for New Car Shopping • More ...

Falling gasoline prices, coupled with increasing airport hassles, have convinced many consumers to travel by car rather than air -- especially for trips of under 500 miles.

As a result, state transportation agencies are redoubling efforts to make roads safer. But paying for it often poses problems.

Budget crunches are forcing states to find low-cost ways to cope with highway safety issues. Such solutions range from repainting roadways to substituting cable for concrete when building barriers.

Highway fatalities rose 1.4 per cent last year over the year before and figure to top that percentage when 2006 figures are complete - unless innovative but inexpensive safety solutions work.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, traffic accidents killed 43,443 people last year and 42,836 the year before. States are anxious to lower those numbers.

At least four states -- Illinois, New York, Texas, and Virginia -- are experimenting with optical speed bars, short parallel white lines perpendicular to the typical down-the-middle lines.

Four other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington State, are trying white dots designed to discourage tailgating.

Wisconsin officials say cable barriers - designed to prevent head-on collisions caused by motorists who cross lanes into oncoming traffic - work because they absorb impact better than concrete. They also don't cost as much.

Removing roadside barriers, from trees to light poles, also helps.

Many states have installed breakaway barriers, most notably on supports for overpasses, that "give" when struck by a car. Georgia, reacting to figures that show three of four fatalities occur when cars hit trees, is reacting by removing roadside trees.

Speed Bars

Seeing optical speed bars painted on the roadway is supposed to give drivers an optical illusion -- that they are going faster than they actually are. But do they work?

Virginia's Department of Transportation is completing a three-month test period that started in early summer. Skeptics insist the bars won't work because they are simply another road distraction, along with advertising billboards, highway signs, and painted signs that create turning lanes. Critics also contend that drivers can best monitor speed by checking speedometers frequently.

Advocates argue that speed bars have been proven effective in other countries (Virginia is among the states that sends transportation engineers on "scouting missions" outside their normal territory).

Such missions don't always work: Washington State junked a $30,000 dot-painting program after three days because it made rush-hour traffic worse. But traffic engineers there and elsewhere are still trying to implement ideas that will improve safety without breaking the bank.

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