The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a recent hearing titled, “Opportunities to Improve Transportation Safety.” U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is the chairwoman of the committee. She and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member, gave opening remarks.
Discussed at the hearing were options that could further reduce fatalities on America’s highways by improving safety for all modes of surface transportation.
In his statement about reducing accidents, John D. Porcari, deputy secretary of transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, told the committee, “Innovation and technology will be critical to improving vehicle, operator and infrastructure safety. Infrastructure improvements reduce the number of crashes and the severity of crashes. They are designed to work in concert with vehicle and behavioral measures to improve driver performance and diminish severity through tools such as signage, pavement friction, rumble strips, the Safety Edge and cable median barriers. We must also explore innovative ways to reduce deaths and serious injuries caused by impaired driving, speeding, failure to wear seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, and other high risk behaviors, including distracted driving.”
Porcari also notes an issue that has grown in its significance for causing accidents, “[Transportation] Secretary [Ray] LaHood is personally committed to reducing the number of injuries and fatalities caused by distracted driving – a dangerous practice that has become a deadly epidemic. Our latest research shows that nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted driver, and more than half a million people were injured.”
As reported in the past, the DOT will continue research emphasis on IntelliDrive technologies that help prevent accidents.
To view the testimony from the hearing, visit ASA’s legislative Web site at www.TakingTheHill.com. For more information, visit www.ASAshop.org.
