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AAA Commentary
Get There Safely
AAA's national advocacy efforts on transportation safety, efficiency and choice fall under the theme, "Get There America." AAA will focus on how to "Get There on Time," "Get There Your Way," and most important, "Get There Safely."
A Public Health Challenge
Transportation safety is the most important yet least recognized public-health challenge of the 21st century. Every year, more than 42,000 people die and millions more are injured on American roads. Traffic deaths are one of the top 10 causes of death for all ages, rivaling cancer, heart disease and HIV. For people 1 to 34 years old, it is the leading cause of death. Death rates for seniors are rising at an alarming rate.
AAA calls upon Congress to implement a public health strategy that will prevent crashes. Pre-crash strategies can prevent crashes altogether—when the potential to save lives and reduce injuries is the greatest. Such efforts also reduce the economic costs associated with medical bills, property damage and lost work time.
AAA has presented a list of safety recommendations to Congress. It calls for pre-crash prevention such as building safer intersections, reducing high-risk driving and collecting high-quality data that will help prevent crashes.
Building Safer Intersections
Currently there are more than 2.8 million crashes that take 8,500 lives each year at intersections. Intersection safety affects everyone, especially children and seniors. The AAA Michigan Road Improvement Demonstration Program is a model that has proven effective in reducing the frequency and severity of crashes at high-risk urban intersections. The initial five-year results show a 46 percent reduction in injuries and a 26 percent reduction in crashes. AAA believes this successful program should be adopted nationwide.
Reducing High-Risk Driving
For high-risk drivers, alcohol is a contributing factor in one-in-five traffic deaths of children under age 15, and alcohol is also a factor in 40 percent of highway deaths-more than 16,000 fatalities each year. The more a driver has been drinking, the less likely children will be secured in car seats or safety belts.
The problem of drunk driving needs practical solutions that can be implemented nationwide, especially for repeat offenders and high blood-alcohol-content offenders. Sobriety checkpoints reduce nonfatal alcohol-related crashes approximately 18 percent, and fatal crashes 22 percent, yet random breath testing is not allowed in many states.
AAA supports incentive grants to implement this highly effective prevention technique. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety recent report, "Drunk Driving: Seeking Additional Solutions," offers solutions to help coordinate efforts within states to prevent drunk drivers from slipping through the cracks.
Collecting Better Data
Too often, the importance of good crash data collection is overlooked. Without up-to-date data, there is not enough viable information to use in the prevention of crashes. Unfortunately, data surveillance systems that track crashes are not funded adequately. Current crash-causation data is more than 25 years old.
Keeping America Safe
Although traffic safety is the least recognized public health issue, it has the greatest potential for improvement. AAA's recommendations to Congress offer a road map of how the United States can realize real, measurable safety gains.
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