Transportation
U.S. Road Safety Laws Lag, While Fatalities Climb
The U.S. traffic mortality rate far outstrips global peers. Here’s how state legislators could intervene.
More than 37,000 people died on U.S. road crashes in 2016. That was a 5.6 percent increase from the previous year, and the second year in a row traffic fatalities went up, after years of steady decline.
Vehicle-related mortality is an increasingly urgent public health concern. It is the second-leading cause of accidental death in America, after drug overdoses.* Yet state legislatures aren’t keeping pace with necessary measures to curb the toll of deaths and injuries, according to a traffic safety group.