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Read the latest news and announcements from traffic safety interest groups and about traffic safety topics here.
The U Drive. U Text. U Pay. high visibility enforcement (HVE) media campaign centers on aiding law enforcement officers in their efforts to keep texting and distracted drivers off the road. Distracted driving is a first offense in many States and continues to gain recognition across the nation as a deadly traffic safety epidemic. Find campaign materials here.
Impaired-driving traffic crashes affect communities negatively across the United States. Previous research confirmed the effectiveness of high-visibility enforcement (HVE) toward reducing impaired-driving fatalities. Read the full publication here.
Hyundai Motor America and Kia America have issued recalls for more than 570,000 vehicles, urging owners to park their vehicles outside and away from homes and other structures until the recall is remedied. The affected vehicles are model years 2022-2023 Hyundai Santa Cruz, 2019-2023 Hyundai Santa Fe, 2021-2023 Santa Fe Hybrid, 2022-2023 Santa Fe Plug-in Hybrid, and 2022-2023 […]
As you may have been informed in August 2022, an interdisciplinary faculty team consisting of 11 faculty and staff won a $10 million (20% cost share) Federal Transit Award grant for electrifying the Crimson Ride Transit bus fleet: https://news.ua.edu/2022/08/federal-award-to-help-ua-electrify-crimson-ride/#:~:text=TUSCALOOSA%2C%20Ala.,for%20the%20electric%20vehicle%20ecosystem. The award will enable the purchase of eight electric buses, medium and high power charging stations and […]
This week, and every week, parents should have conversations with their teens about the important rules they need to follow to stay safe behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. These rules address the greatest dangers for teen drivers: distracted driving (texting while driving) impaired driving (alcohol and drugs) inconsistent or no seat belt use […]
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Barbara Rooney, Governor’s Representative (GR) and Director of the California Office of Traffic Safety (CA OTS), was elected to serve as Chair of the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) Executive Board at the organization’s 2022 Annual Meeting last week in Louisville, Ky. Rooney will serve a one-year term for GHSA, the national nonprofit […]
Drowsy driving is a significant threat to traffic safety and public health. Although underreported in government statistics, previous research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has estimated that 6% to 11% of all police-reported motor-vehicle crashes and 16% to 21% of fatal crashes likely involve drowsy driving. Thus, there is a need to identify […]
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today released its early estimates of traffic fatalities for the first half of 2022. An estimated 20,175 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, an increase of about 0.5% as compared to 20,070 fatalities NHTSA projected for the first half of 2021. However, NHTSA projects that the second quarter of […]
Distracted driving is a major contributor to crashes. In 2020, there were 3,142 lives lost to crashes involving distracted driving (Stewart, 2022). Countermeasures that aim to reduce distracted driving exist, such as laws, enforcement campaigns, outreach, and programs for adult and teen drivers (Venkatraman et al., 2021). However, these typically target the drivers themselves; few […]
The COVID-19 pandemic, mitigation efforts such as stay-at-home orders, and ensuing trends such as the rise in working from home, have had substantial impacts on traffic. In March, NHTSA reported that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) decreased 11% from 2019 to 2020, while police-reported crashes decreased 22%. However, fatalities per 100 million VMT increased 21% from […]
