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Read the latest news and announcements from traffic safety interest groups and about traffic safety topics here.
Traffic Safety Facts 2013 Data: Overview
Motor vehicle travel is the primary means of transportation in the United States, providing an unparalleled degree of mobility. Yet for all its advantages, motor vehicle crashes in 2013 were the leading cause of death for children age 4 and every age from 16 to 24.1 The mission of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration […]
Using Driver Simulators to Measure the Impact of Distracted Driving on Commercial Motor Vehicle Operators
This reports describes research completed to study driver distraction among CMV operators. The team chose two common handheld devises that are major issues for today’s CMV operators: Mp3 players and cell phones. All 25 drivers who voluntarily participated in this study were professionals from commercial and independent companies who had at least 5 years of […]
Branding Teen Drivers as Newbies Doesn’t Prevent Crashes
Nothing says “I’m a new driver” more than a fire-red label stuck to your license plate for all to see. That’s what happens in New Jersey to anyone with a learner’s permit under age 21. But identifying these newest drivers doesn’t necessarily help reduce crash rates, research finds.
Two Rival Self-Driving Cars have Close Call in California
Two self-driving prototype cars, one operated by Google Inc and the other by Delphi Automotive Plc, had a close call on a Silicon Valley street earlier this week, a Delphi executive told Reuters on Thursday. It was believed to be the first such incident involving two vehicles specially equipped for automated driving. The incident occurred […]
Samsung Working to Make Trucks ‘Transparent’
Samsung is working on a technology to let people see through giant trucks on the road. The Safety Truck prototype mounts a wireless camera on the front of the vehicle and livestreams the view onto a giant wall of four video screens on the back. If you’re stuck behind a large truck, you’ll have a clear, real-time […]
Collision-Avoidance Could be Part of Car Ratings
Legislation being proposed in the U.S. House and Senate today would require federal auto regulators to include information about collision-avoidance systems in their new car safety ratings. The legislation is being proposed by U.S. Sens. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., and U.S. Reps. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. It comes just […]
Automatic Braking Shouldn’t Just be for the Rich
Over 1,700 people were killed and 500,000 injured in rear end crashes 2012, according to federal agency. That’s why the National Transportation Safety Board is urging regulators to make automatic braking systems a standard feature on all new cars. “Safety should be a basic feature rather than an option we have to purchase and that […]
Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2014
A statistical projection of traffic fatalities shows that an estimated 32,675 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2014. This represents a very marginal decrease of about 0.1 percent as compared to the 32,719 fatalities that were reported to have occurred in 2013, as shown in Table 1. Also in 2014, fatalities decreased in the first (down 3.9%), second (down […]
Traffic Safety Facts: Seat Belt Use in 2014–Use Rates in the States and Territories
In 2014, seat belt use rates in the United States ranged from a low of 68.9 percent in South Dakota to a high of 97.8 percent in Oregon. Nineteen States, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands achieved belt use rates of 90 percent or higher. These results are from probability-based observational surveys […]