Stronger laws needed for safer roads

Stronger laws needed for safer roads

The U.S. Congress and state legislatures need to be doing more to improve safety on American roads. Cathy Chase, President of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, conveyed that message during a recent roundtable discussion on roadway safety hosted by Nationwide.

Chase said the dangerous state of driving on roads makes the need for stronger laws and regulations critical.

"With approximately 40,000 people being killed on our roadways, it's clear we need our nation's and state leaders to improve safety," said Chase. "Congress needs to enact laws directing the U.S. Department of Transportation to make vehicles safer and to motivate states to improve their laws."

Once those directives come down from the federal government, Chase says the states need to do their part.

"State legislatures and governors need to improve their laws such as requiring all occupants to buckle up, and to reduce impaired and distracted driving."

Steve English, Nationwide's Senior Vice President of External Affairs, pointed to the work that Ohio has done with passing the 2023 Hands Free legislation and the impact that it's having on making Ohio roads safer.

"We know from previous studies that states that pass primary, hands-free legislation experience a decrease in fatality rates within two years after their hands-free law passed, sometimes as much as 20%," English pointed out. "In Ohio last year, the highway patrol reported a 25% decrease in fatal crashes during the 2023 holiday reporting period and a 20% reduction as of the first quarter this year."

Technology can help, but only so much

Drivers say that advances in driver assistance features, like adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, blind spot monitoring and lane-keeping assistance, are helpful in making roads safer.

Casey Kempton, Nationwide's President of Personal Lines Insurance, pointed to a recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study that revealed driver assistance features are having an impact.

"The study compared rates of police reported crashes and insurance claims for vehicles with and without these technologies and discovered all reduced accidents," said Kempton. "For example: front to rear crashes (rear-ends) were 27% lower when equipped with forward collision warning (FCW), and 50% lower with FCW and autobrake."

But experts are concerned that Americans are becoming too dependent on features to keep them safe.

"If they think the car will take care of some of the driving responsibilities, they'll pay less attention to driving and do other things," Chase explained. "IIHS also found that people are learning how to 'game' the partial autonomous systems. So, tech that would hopefully make the driving experience safer is leading to new dangers."

All hands-on deck for safer roads

Ultimately, the group agreed that everyone - drivers, automakers, business owners, legislators and insurance carriers - needs to do their part in making roadways safer.Because, according to a recent Nationwide Agency Forward driving behaviors survey, most drivers agree that driving has become more dangerous, more aggressive, more reckless, with drivers more often looking at their phones compared to 12 months ago.

"Nationwide's strategy when it comes to roadway safety has always been an 'all of the above' or 'kitchen sink' approach," said Kempton. "We need heightened public awareness around the risks and dangers on our roadways and we need to encourage the development of technology to mitigate those risks which telematics and driver assistance features are part of that. We also need to continue targeted research into what's working and what isn't through our partnerships with Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the IIHS and others."

View the entire Roundtable discussion below.

For more information on how they can help make roads safer, drivers should visit saferoads.org. Information about how Nationwide's efforts to curb distracted driving can be found on Nationwide's Distracted Driving Resource Page.