Author: Hanna Hopkins

  • November 14th, 2019

As part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) mission to help Americans drive, ride, and walk safely, the agency is urging consumers to avoid using or purchasing car seats for their child that do not meet federal safety standards. On October 29, 2019, a concerned pediatrician alerted NHTSA about […]

  • November 11th, 2019

This document contains examples of water buildup locations on mileposted and non-mileposted roadways. While these examples may be used by some statewide agencies (e.g., ALEA and ALDOT) to address potential problems that could either be fixed or mitigated by enforcement, they also have value in training of local agencies. This training should include instruction on […]

  • November 11th, 2019

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center), under the direction of the DOT Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research, Development and Technology (RD&T), conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of engineering treatments to deter vehicles from turning onto a rail right-of-way (ROW) at highway-rail grade […]

  • November 11th, 2019

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to bring major improvements in highway safety. Motor vehicle crashes caused an estimated 37,133 fatalities in 2017; a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has shown that 94% of crashes are due to human errors. For this reason, federal oversight of the testing and deployment of autonomous […]

  • November 11th, 2019

This research brief used data from the AAA Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers (LongROAD) study to examine the role of driving comfort in the self-regulation of driving by older adults. Self-regulation is the process by which individuals modify or adjust their driving patterns by driving less, or intentionally avoiding situations considered challenging. The process of […]

  • November 11th, 2019

In March 2018, an Uber test vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in the first known fatal crash involving a self-driving car. But prior to that, Uber’s fleet of prototype autonomous cars was involved in 37 crashes, according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the federal agency charged with investigating transportation-related accidents. The […]

  • November 4th, 2019

Advances in the development of advanced vehicle technologies (AVTs), such as blind spot alerts, lane keep assist, lane alert, and adaptive cruise control, can benefit senior drivers by reducing exposure to hazards and compensating for diminished cognitive abilities sometimes seen in this population. However, the degree to which such benefits can be realized in this […]