Marking World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

By Nicholas Worrell, Chief, NTSB Safety Advocacy Division

Sunday, November 19, is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Every year on this day, people around the world honor the memories of crash victims. All of us at the NTSB want to express our condolences to those who have lost loved ones to motor vehicle crashes.

The NTSB works tirelessly to discover the cause of a crash and issue recommendations to prevent future crashes. From tragedy, we identify and advocate for improvements that move us toward a safer transportation system.

It can be said that much of the NTSB’s function is to remember, as we fight for the implementation of our safety recommendations even long after a crash. We remember crashes. We remember the recommendations that stemmed from them. And we never forget recommendations just because they have not yet been acted upon or because too much time has passed.

Similarly, victim advocates–those who have lost loved ones to senseless crashes–are often at the forefront of safety improvements, driven on by the memory of those they lost.

One of the better known and longest-tenured advocacy organizations, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, grew from a mother who lost her daughter to a national movement of victim advocates who support one another and work tirelessly to prevent future impaired-driving tragedies.

The In One Instant Teen Safe Driving Program was founded after a mother escorted her daughter to the funerals of three friends who were killed in car crashes. In One Instant has been implemented in more than 4,000 schools in all 50 states and educates young drivers on the risks associated with distracted, impaired, and reckless driving.

In 2017, the NTSB hosted the Act2End Distracted Driving Roundtable, which gave a voice to victim advocates impacted by distracted driving. Advocates spoke about turning their personal tragedies into effective advocacy efforts to prevent others from going through what they have endured.

It is not unusual for the NTSB to find itself supported by victim advocates in our quest for action on our safety recommendations. This goes beyond NTSB-hosted roundtables and webinars to our testimony in state legislatures about changes to the rules of the road. Why? Because, like the NTSB, these advocates remember, and they will not stop fighting for change until the highway deaths stop.

You don’t have to be personally affected by a crash to mark the World Day of Remembrance in your thoughts and in your actions. This World Day of Remembrance, commit to redoubling your attention to safe driving. To drive distracted, fatigued, or impaired is to forget the danger and impact our decisions can have on families, friends, and our communities.

Remembrance is not only an honorable response to tragedy, but a sacred duty to protect each other from future crashes and loss of life. Before you get behind the wheel, make sure you’re rested and sober. Put the phone away. Don’t speed. Remember that your life, and the lives of others, can be changed irrevocably by just one bad driving decision.

Remember those lost to protect the future of loved ones still with us.

Prioritizing Safety This Holiday Travel Season

By Stephanie Shaw, Acting Chief, NTSB Safety Advocacy Division

This week, families and friends will gather to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. According to estimates from AAA, nearly 55 million people will travel away from home this year, with about 49 million of them taking to the roads.

As we mark the beginning of the holiday travel season, we want to ensure that everyone arrives safely at their destinations. Unfortunately, travel on our roads can be the riskiest mode of travel during the holiday season.

NTSB investigations continue to highlight actions needed by regulators, legislators, and industry to ensure the safest transportation system for the traveling public. Our Most Wanted List (MWL) identifies specific transportation safety improvements needed across all modes. It includes five road safety improvements that address pervasive problems like speeding, alcohol and other drug impairment, and distraction. The MWL also calls for collision-avoidance and connected vehicle technologies and implementation of a Safe System Approach to better protect all road users.

At the NTSB, we believe that safety is a shared responsibility, so for the traveling public, we’ve highlighted some ways you can keep yourself and others safe, regardless of the travel mode you choose.

By Car

Impairment by alcohol and other drugs, unsafe speeds, fatigue, and distraction continue to play major roles in crashes. Here’s what you can do:

• Designate a sober driver, or call a taxi, or ridesharing service if your holiday celebrations involve alcohol or other impairing drugs.
• Follow safe speeds. In bad weather, safe speeds are often below the designated speed limit. Speeding increases the chance of being involved in a crash and intensifies the severity of crash injuries.
• Make sure you’re well rested! A fatigued driver is just as dangerous as one impaired by alcohol or other drugs.
• Avoid distractions. Don’t take or make calls or text while driving, even using a hands-free device. Set your navigation system before you start driving. If you’re traveling with others, ask them to navigate.
• Make sure to use the correct safety restraint for child passengers, and be sure it’s installed correctly.
• Ensure you and all your passengers are buckled up! In a crash, seat belts (and proper child restraints) are your best protection against death and serious injuries.

By Bus

The NTSB has made recommendations to improve motorcoach operations and vehicle crashworthiness, but travelers should know what to do in an emergency.

• Pay attention to safety briefings and know where the nearest emergency exit is. If it’s a window or roof hatch, make sure you know how to use it.
• Ask your driver to give you a safety briefing if you’re unsure of where the exits are or how to use them.
• Use your seat belt when they’re available!

By Plane or Boat

These tips can help you and your loved ones in an emergency on planes or vessels.

• Pay close attention to the safety briefing! Airline and marine accidents have become very rare, but you and your family can be safer by being prepared.
• Know where to find the nearest emergency exit and flotation device whether you’re on an airplane or a boat.
• Confirm that you and your traveling companions—even children under age 2—have your own seats and are buckled up when flying.
• Don’t forget your child’s car seat. The label will usually tell you if your child car seat is certified for airplane use; the owner’s manual always has this information.
• Call the airline and ask what the rules are for using a child’s car seat on your flight, if you don’t already know.
• Follow crewmember instructions and remain calm in an emergency.

By Train

The NTSB has made recommendations to improve passenger rail operations and vehicle crashworthiness, but travelers should also follow these safety tips.

• Stow carry-ons in the locations provided (overhead and racks). Don’t block aisles.
• Review your trains safety information which may be provided as a safety card in your seat pocket or displayed in your railcar.
• Follow crewmember instructions and remain calm in an emergency.

No matter how you travel, make a commitment to put safety first.

We wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Remembering the Victims of Maryland Route 210

By Nicholas Worrell, Chief, NTSB Safety Advocacy Division

On June 25, I had the opportunity to represent the NTSB at the Route 210 “Dignity of Life” Observance in Prince George’s Country, Maryland, where I have spent most of my adult life. Although the observance had tragic roots, it was good to see some attention paid to the toll taken by crashes in this largely Black area.

After the jubilation of Juneteenth, it was a gut-wrenching reminder of one of our greatest remaining inequities as a nation. Statistics show that Blacks and other minority groups are disproportionately likely to die in crashes.

Total crash deaths skyrocketed to an estimate of almost 43,000 in 2021. If we are to reduce the surging totals, we must also be intentional about our efforts in these underprivileged, underserved, and vulnerable communities.

This solemn and dignified gathering was to remember the irreplaceable, individual human beings who have been lost, and continue to be lost, on Maryland Route 210. Eighty people have died in crashes there between 2007 and the present. One of them was the husband of my NTSB colleague Susan Pipkin. At the event, Susan’s daughter, Diamond, said, “He was just thrown from his motorcycle, and it shook our lives,” as she broke into tears.  Like bicyclists and pedestrians, motorcycle riders are vulnerable road users and are overrepresented in fatality statistics nationwide.

Diamond Pipkin talks about her father’s crash at the Route 210 “Dignity of Life” Observance

Nicholas Worrell delivers remarks at the Route 210 “Dignity of Life” Observance

Nicholas Worrell and Susan Pipkin talk with community leaders at the Route 210 “Dignity of Life” Observance

Every loss on our roads is a tragedy. Every one of these losses is preventable. And, as I said to the families of the victims, every one of their loved ones was an individual, irreplaceable, had dignity and humanity, and deserved to live.

At the NTSB, we investigate crashes in all modes of transportation. We focus on answering one question, the same question that family members also ask after such a tragedy: Why? Unlike victims’ families and loved ones, though, we must be as objective as possible and look at the same question from an investigator’s point of view. We strive to turn our findings into action by issuing safety recommendations. However, we can only recommend changes—lawmakers, industry, and others must act on them.

I have worked enough with victim and survivor advocates to know that these tragedies are not one-time events. The loss persists and reemerges in so many ways: every time they look across the holiday table to the seat their loved one used to take, every time there is a birthday or a wedding anniversary that they used to celebrate, whenever they go to dial a number to share something with someone who is forever disconnected.

As we approach the Fourth of July holiday, a notoriously dangerous time on our nation’s roads, there’s no better time to take stock of how we’re protecting road users in all communities. This means reflecting on all parts of the system, not just on the behaviors of drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and riders. We must adopt a Safe System Approach that builds in redundancy so that when one part of the system fails, road users don’t lose their lives. We owe all road users nothing less than our determination that one day, Maryland Route 210 will be another safe road in a safe system, one with zero road deaths and zero serious injuries. And we must ensure that we are making equitable safety investments.

We don’t lose 43,000 faceless statistics every year, we lose 43,000 loved ones. They are irreplaceable. They are precious. The lives of those left behind are shaken, forever changed.

The families I met on June 25 are members of a club none of them ever wanted to join. The best way to honor the life of Mr. Pipkin and the lives of countless others who perished on our roads is to close the door to the club forever.

Drive Sober and Save Lives the Holiday Season

By Member Tom Chapman

Unlike last year when many holiday gatherings were cancelled due to the pandemic, many of us will return to visiting family and attending holiday parties this year. Some may see this as an opportunity for a 2020 do-over and may overindulge on merriment.

The holiday season is a time of increased impaired-driving crashes due to these celebrations and gatherings. The President has designated December as National Impaired Driving Prevention Month, and it serves as a reminder that traffic fatalities and injuries attributed to impaired driving are 100 percent preventable.

In 2019, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 10,142 people were killed in traffic crashes in which at least one driver had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of 0.08 g/dL or higher. That number comprises 28 percent of the 36,096 traffic fatalities that year.  Also of concern, NHTSA estimated a 9 percent increase in police-reported alcohol involved crashes between 2019 and 2020.  These deaths are not abstract statistics. These were mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, children, friends, and other loved ones. They are people who will be deeply missed at this year’s holiday gatherings.

In addition to alcohol, there are other impairing substances, such as marijuana, other illegal drugs, and prescribed and over-the-counter medications. These can all be as dangerous as alcohol for a driver. As we continue to understand more about the extent to which drugged driving contributes to fatalities and injuries, we are certain that the prevalence of this, as well as multiple or “poly-drug” use while driving, is on the rise.

In June, NHTSA published an update on research looking at drug and alcohol prevalence in seriously and fatally injured road users before and during the COVID-19 public health emergency. The overall picture is very troubling. In general, drug and alcohol prevalence among drivers seriously injured or killed in crashes increased during the pandemic. Significant increases were reported for drivers testing positive for cannabinoids and multiple substances. These are not the trends that we want to see.

The NTSB has issued specific recommendations that, if implemented, would help prevent these deaths and injuries. They include required all-offender ignition interlocks, .05 (or lower) BAC limits, and a national drug testing standard. Our 2021-2022 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements includes the safety item “Prevent Alcohol- and other Drug-impaired Driving,” with these and several additional safety recommendations remaining open.

Congress recently passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which advances some of NTSB’s most important safety recommendations. For example, the new law requires the Secretary of Transportation to issue a final rule requiring all new passenger motor vehicles to be equipped with advanced drunk driving prevention technology within three years. I am encouraged and hopeful we’ll see this technology incorporated soon, as it could be a game-changer for alcohol-impaired driving.

By exercising personal responsibility, you can do your part to prevent impaired driving crashes during the holiday season. It’s simple. Choose drinking or driving, but not both. Have a designated driver. Call a taxi or ride-share service. These basic steps will save lives. Let’s ensure there will be many more enjoyable holiday seasons to come.

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

By Chair Jennifer Homendy

November 21 is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. It is a day to honor the 1.3 million lives lost each year around the world in motor vehicle crashes.

Today, I urge everyone to take a moment to remember all those who have lost loved ones in crashes, as millions have done around the world since 1995. Here in the United States, traffic deaths are up 18 percent over the first half of 2020. We are on pace to lose 40,000 Americans this year alone.

My thoughts are with all who have lost loved ones, but especially those I’ve met who lost loved ones in crashes that the NTSB has investigated, and the survivor advocates I’ve gotten to know over the years.

We need to remember these numbers are people from our communities. They are lives lost: mothers, fathers, or children suddenly, permanently gone; brothers and sisters absent from holiday gatherings; friends missing from a baby shower. We record our losses in data tables, but we feel them at the dinner table, and in the graduations, weddings, and birthdays never celebrated.

At a November 10 virtual roundtable on the need for our nation to transition to a Safe System approach, I called for a moment of silence in advance of the World Day of Remembrance. I said then that, for the NTSB, the toughest part of our job is facing family members after a tragedy, explaining that their loved one’s death was 100 percent preventable and that we’ve issued recommendations which, if acted upon, would have prevented the crash and the loss of their loved one.

Then I said that we need a paradigm shift in how we address this ever-growing public health crisis.

For 26 years now, the world has memorialized the victims of motor vehicle crashes, and we have been right to remember them. No loss should be forgotten. But these are unnecessary losses. They must not be remembered only in words.

They deserve and demand action now.

They demand to be remembered with road treatments, traffic calming measures, engineering speed assessments, road safety laws, and other investments that will result in safe roads and safe speeds on those roads.

They demand to be remembered with the manufacture of safe vehicles that should come standard with better technology for avoiding collisions, including collisions with pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists.

They must be remembered with vehicle sizes and shapes that are less likely to result in the pedestrian and bicyclist deaths that we have seen so often.

They demand to be remembered with ignition interlocks for all impaired drivers, in the development of in-vehicle alcohol detection technology, and in fair and just traffic law enforcement.

They demand to be memorialized with increased investments in alternative modes of transportation, like public transit, which will reduce crashes on our roads, in newly changed laws to improve road safety, and in the enforcement of existing laws.

But most of all, these victims should be remembered as what they were: flesh and blood. Human. Vulnerable.

Put that image at the center of all the other aspects of our roads, and you’ll see the road as we must in order to finally make it safe. Don’t think of numbers, think of people. Put them at the center of every decision about our road system. That’s the paradigm shift that we need—to make our many layers of traffic hazards into layers of traffic protection, so that when crashes happen, nobody pays for it with their life.

This Day of Remembrance, let’s remember that the candle we light to remember victims is more than just a memorial; it’s a light showing the way to a safer tomorrow.