Author: Hanna Hopkins

  • January 24th, 2019

Statement for attribution to Governors Highway Safety Association Director of Policy and Government Relations Russ Martin WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) thanks the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for conducting ongoing research to better understand the prevalence of distracted driving and its role in traffic crashes. IIHS’ study validates what all drivers  see […]

  • January 22nd, 2019

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month and, in support of this traffic safety initiative, NHTSA will be kicking off its annual “U Text. U Drive. U Pay.” national high visibility enforcement campaign to prevent distracted driving. Additionally, NHTSA has developed a robust social media strategy designed to raise public awareness about the consequences of […]

  • January 17th, 2019

Officials from several agencies gathered in Washington in early December for a meeting of the Federal Interagency Committee on EMS (FICEMS), which helps coordinate EMS-related policy and planning issues across the Federal Government. The agenda included a discussion of some of the responses received to a recent Request for Information (RFI) about how to improve […]

  • January 17th, 2019

The opioid crisis has raised questions about the best way to address patients’ pain in the field. While there’s no evidence tying prehospital administration of narcotics to addiction or overdose deaths, finding alternatives to managing pain could reduce the amount of opioids in the field. At the same time, it is critical that patients’ pain […]

  • January 17th, 2019

At a forum in September in Washington, speakers challenged EMS leaders in the audience to begin making the changes necessary to achieve a truly people-centered EMS system. “Doing things that are truly people-centered will take hard work and create bruised egos,” said Andy Gienapp, director of the Wyoming Office of EMS. “But that’s our challenge. […]

  • January 17th, 2019

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) highlights excessive vehicle speed as a persistent factor in nearly one-third of all motor vehicle-related fatalities. Despite this, speeding is not given enough attention as a traffic safety issue and is widely deemed culturally acceptable by the motoring public. “Speeding Away from Zero: Rethinking […]

  • January 9th, 2019

This research brief utilized data from the AAA Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers (LongROAD) study to examine the amount and types of medications used by older drivers. Many medications – such as antihistamines, narcotic analgesics, central nervous system (CNS) drugs, muscle relaxants and tricyclic antidepressants – have been associated with increased crash risk. 1,2 We […]

  • January 9th, 2019

Despite large investments in traffic safety programs and technologies, motor vehicle accidents continue to impose high social costs, and crash casualty rates have recently started to increase. New strategies are needed to achieve ambitious traffic safety targets such as Vision Zero. Recent research improves our understanding of factors that affect traffic risks and identifies new […]