Road-related fatalities and injuries continue to be a leading cause of unacceptable and preventable death and serious injury worldwide, as evidenced in yesterday’s ABC News article.
AMAG applauds the many agencies and safety champions within departments of transportation at local, regional, state, and federal levels worldwide who are confronting this challenge along with AMAG. We can’t avoid bringing up the tired but blatantly relevant phrase “insanity is doing the same and expecting something different” when thinking about what is needed to significantly reduce the social harm on our roads.
The solution roadmap is quite simple to articulate and much more difficult to implement. First and foremost, safety must be managed proactively, with focus on pre-crash risk predictors such as critical conflicts and near-misses which are abundantly available and reliable for risk management, rather than crash-based methods that are reactionary and are too rare to support reliable and efficient for decision-making. It also includes but is not limited to reducing operating speeds overall, especially when and where active travelers are present. Technologies must be developed and harnessed to detect safety issues in real time and mitigate them. Vehicles must become smarter and more capable. Physical separation of vulnerable road users from vehicles is ideal. Monitored infrastructure must convey risk to vehicles, and vice versa. Fatigued, distracted, and impaired drivers should never drive. We need bold elected and appointed leaders at all levels to lead the Safe System Approach to achieve zero deaths.
AMAG invites our partners and customers to join us in helping society head towards Vision Zero. Everyone on this same journey is a hero, thank you all for your efforts and dedication. If you are not currently on the journey, it’s never too late to start.
