Driving Change: Insights from the 2024 Lifesavers Conference

Anthony Lam, NTSB Transportation Safety Specialist, Office of Safety Recommendations and Communications

Attendees stepped into the world of road safety innovation and collaboration at last week’s Lifesavers Conference 2024 in Denver, Colorado. Each year, experts, advocates, and policymakers convene at Lifesavers to tackle pressing issues shaping the future of safer roadways. From combating impaired driving to ensuring equitable access to cutting-edge vehicle technology, NTSB staff presented and moderated a variety of workshops that offered invaluable insights and strategies for creating a safer tomorrow.

NTSB staff at 2024 Lifesavers Conference exhibit booth

NTSB Transportation Research Analyst Dr. Ryan Smith’s presentation, “The Oral Fluids Factor: Roadside & Evidential Testing to Reduce Drug-impaired Driving,” shed light on the rising interest in using oral fluid testing in roadside and evidential testing for drug impairment. With the landscape of cannabis legalization evolving and concerns about drugged driving escalating, the timing couldn’t be more crucial. Attendees gained insights into the nuances between preliminary and evidential testing, the mechanics of roadside testing, and the outcomes from states already implementing oral fluid testing. Discussions encompassed emerging challenges such as detecting novel drugs, ongoing research, and legal hurdles faced by states.

In 2022, we released a safety research report titled, Alcohol, Other Drug, and Multiple Drug Use Among Drivers, which found oral fluid is a valuable—but underused—biological specimen for detecting drug use by drivers. The report also recommended states modify their impaired-driving laws, if they have not already, to allow for oral fluid drug testing. Smith pointed this out in his presentation, adding, “It [oral fluid testing] can play a key role in supporting the enforcement of impaired-driving laws.”

Dr. Ryan Smith, Transportation Research Analyst, Office of Research and Engineering

Smith also organized and moderated the session, “Brave New World in Cannabis Detection,” which brought together leading-edge researchers in the field of cannabis detection. Cannabis impairment is a critical issue, and researchers discussed novel ways that cannabis use can be detected in drivers. In his opening remarks, Smith stated: “More than half of the US population now lives in a state where cannabis has been legalized. Recent NTSB research demonstrates the high prevalence of cannabis use among drivers, second in prevalence only to alcohol. Effective methods for detecting signs of cannabis impairment are critical for getting impaired drivers off our nation’s roadways.”

NTSB Office of Highway Safety Program Manager Ellen Lee gave a presentation on the dangers of speeding titled, “Not so Fast & Furious – Channeling Our Energy to Prevent Speed-related Fatalities,” which highlighted the urgent need to address speed-related fatalities through a comprehensive approach. Lee talked about the NTSB’s recent recommendations from our investigation of a crash in North Las Vegas, Nevada, where speeding and speeding recidivism were key.

Ellen Lee, Program Manager, Office of Highway Safety

Lee emphasized our findings that the driver in the crash was impaired and had received seven recent speeding offenses in the 5 years before the crash. “Despite repeated law enforcement actions, the driver’s record was inaccurate (showing only one speeding violation) and local courts treated this driver as a new offender for each violation,” Lee said.

Drawing from NTSB crash investigations and real-world examples, attendees learned about effective countermeasures and community engagement strategies. From leveraging data insights to advocating for vehicle safety technologies and infrastructure enhancements, the workshop underscored the importance of collaboration to curb excessive speed and protect lives on the road.

NTSB Safety Advocate Leah Walton moderated a thought-provoking discussion in her session, “A Safe System Approach to Address Impaired Driving” exploring where and how impaired driving fits into the five pillars of the Safe System Approach. Walton and her panel explored the multifaceted challenges posed by impaired driving, particularly concerning polysubstance impairment. Attendees gained a deeper understanding of the prevalence and risks associated with this behavior, along with potential policy interventions and enforcement strategies.

Leah Walton, Safety Advocate, Office of Safety Recommendations and Communications

In Walton’s opening remarks, she emphasized, “We cannot have a safe system while impaired driving is killing over 13,000 people a year. To achieve zero fatalities, we must expand our view of impaired-driving prevention through the Safe System lens.” With an emphasis on partnership-building at both the state and national levels, the workshop provided a roadmap for stakeholders to tackle impaired driving head-on and enhance road safety.

Stephanie Shaw, NTSB Management Analysis Officer, moderated the session, “Safety for All: How Vehicle Technology Addresses Underserved Populations.” Exploring design considerations, benefits, and challenges, attendees learned ways to extend these advancements to underserved populations. Shaw emphasized the importance of building a system that guarantees safe transportation for all who use it, regardless of socioeconomic status or mode of travel, whether it be personal vehicle, bike, walking, rolling, hailing a rideshare or an autonomous shuttle service, or taking public transportation. This sentiment encapsulated the overarching theme of inclusivity and accessibility discussed throughout the workshop.

Stephanie Shaw, Management Analysis Officer, Office of Railroad, Pipeline, and Hazardous Materials Investigations

The Lifesavers Conference serves as a catalyst for meaningful dialogue and collaboration in advancing road safety initiatives. By harnessing innovation, data-driven approaches, and community engagement, attendees are empowered to drive tangible change and create safer roads for everyone. We hope to continue these important dialogues at next year’s Lifesavers Conference in Long Beach, California!

Honor Traffic Victims with Action

By Chair Jennifer Homendy

50 million deaths. Hundreds of millions of injuries.

That’s the worldwide cost of traffic violence, in human terms. It’s difficult to comprehend fully, which is why the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is so meaningful.

This annual observance provides a time to reflect on the real people behind the statistics: mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, colleagues, best friends, and neighbors.

It’s a time to support those who’ve lost a loved one to the public health crisis on our roads.

And it’s a time to act, starting with NTSB recommendations.

Lessons from Tragedy

Since last year’s World Day of Remembrance, the NTSB has made 26 new recommendations to improve road safety. All remain open.

Where did these recommendations come from? They are the result of rigorous NTSB investigations into devastating crashes, outlined below. Each one is a lesson from tragedy, which is why we don’t rest until a recommendation is implemented.

At the NTSB, we believe the most meaningful thing we can do for victims of traffic violence is to advocate for our safety recommendations.

In other words: we choose to honor the victims with action.

Here are just some of the victims we’re remembering today — along with the recommended safety improvements to best honor their memory. 

Today we remember two people who were killed and seven who were injured in a Belton, SC, crash between an SUV and a bus carrying disabled passengers. The actions we demand on their behalf include the following:

• Ban nonemergency use of portable electronic devices, like cellphones, for all drivers.  
• Recruit cellphone manufacturers in the fight against distracted driving; they should automatically disable distracting functions when a vehicle is in motion.
• Provide annual safety training for people employed to transport wheelchair users.  
• Develop a side-impact protection standard for new, medium-size buses, regardless of weight — and require compliance.

We should honor the victims of the Pennsylvania Turnpike crash that injured 50 people and killed five others — including a nine-year-old child — by taking the following actions:

• Develop performance standards for advanced speed-limiting technology, connected-vehicle technology, and collision-avoidance systems — and require their use on new vehicles, as appropriate.
• Require newly manufactured heavy vehicles to have onboard video event recorders.
• Deploy connected-vehicle technology nationwide.
• Take a comprehensive approach to eliminate speeding. Among other measures, this means thinking long and hard about the 85th percentile approach and using speed safety cameras, which includes working to remove restrictions against them. 

Here’s what we must do to honor the three people who were killed and the 18 who were injured when a bus overturned in Pala Mesa, California:

• Require all new buses to meet a roof strength standard.
• Sponsor research into safe tire tread depths for commercial vehicles.
• Require seat belt use.

The best way to remember the victims of the Decatur, Tennessee, school bus crash that injured 14 people and killed two people, including a 7-year-old child, is to take the following steps:

• Make lap-shoulder belts mandatory in new school buses.
• Require lane-departure prevention systems on heavy vehicles.

And what about the nine people who died in a head-on crash in Avenal, California, on New Year’s Day — seven of whom were children? We must implement the following NTSB recommendations in their memory:

• Require alcohol-detection systems in all new vehicles to prevent alcohol-impaired driving.
• Encourage vehicle manufacturers to combat alcohol-impaired driving by accelerating progress on advanced impaired driving prevention technology and finding new ways to use existing technology, like driver monitoring systems.
• Incentivize vehicle manufacturers and consumers to adopt intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) systems. One way to achieve this is to include ISA in the New Car Assessment Program. Notably, ISA became mandatory in July 2022 for all new models of vehicles introduced in the European Union.
• Develop a common standard of practice for drug toxicology testing by state officials.

Remember. Support. Act.

Even as we advocate for our safety recommendations, more crashes are occurring daily — which means more investigations. The work continues.

And yet, we cannot let the magnitude of the road safety crisis deter us.

We must keep fighting for zero, which is only possible through a Safe System Approach. 

We must fight for road users around the world who deserve to be safe.

We must fight for those whose lives are forever changed by traffic violence.

We must fight for those who are no longer here to fight for themselves.

For all these people and more, the NTSB will keep fighting. And so will I.

Where is the Outrage? Road Users Deserve Better

By Chair Jennifer Homendy

42,915

16-year high

10.5-percent increase

An early estimate, released this week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), shows 42,915 people—117 people per day—died on the nation’s roads last year. I, for one, am outraged by these needless deaths. Those victims are mothers and fathers, children and grandparents, friends, and coworkers. They are also often the most vulnerable among us. Where is our collective outrage over these deaths? Zero fatalities is our goal!

Here are a few insights within the data:

• Pedestrian fatalities up 13 percent
• Motorcyclist fatalities up 9 percent
• Bicyclist fatalities up 5 percent
• Fatalities in speeding-related crashes up 5 percent
• Fatalities in police-reported, alcohol-involvement crashes up 5 percent
• Fatalities on urban roads up 16 percent
• Fatalities in crashes involving at least one large truck up 13 percent

The NTSB knows what needs to be done. The NTSB has investigated countless crashes, issued thousands of safety recommendations, and identified the data-driven approaches to make our roads safer, to prevent deaths and injuries. The NTSB has highlighted safety improvements on our Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements that can save lives on our roads.

We don’t need more guidance, we don’t need pilot programs, we need action. Action by regulators. Action by lawmakers and states. Action by manufacturers. Action by road designers and engineers. Action by all road users. We need to adopt the Safe System Approach and share the responsibility for safety.

Safe Speeds

Speed increases the likelihood of a crash and injury severity when a crash occurs. Speeding contributes to about one-third of all traffic-related crash fatalities. States must set safe speeds. Speeds that ensure that when a crash happens—because they will—whether you are inside or outside a vehicle, you will survive. States’ decades-old, one-size-fits-all approach for setting speed limits based on the speed of vehicles is senseless, focused on drivers rather than all road users, and is just leading to increasing speed limits across the U.S. And State Departments of Transportation reliance on education over proven countermeasures like implementation of speed safety cameras is ineffective.

Safe Vehicles

Since 1995, the NTSB has issued more than 25 safety recommendations to the US Department of Transportation modal agencies and vehicle manufacturers on the need to develop performance standards for collision avoidance technologies and to make them standard in all vehicles. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nearly 30 years later, we’re still waiting.

Prominently bolded on NHTSA’s homepage is the phrase “Safe cars save lives.” However, the safest cars are still only for those who can afford them. NHTSA must act to implement NTSB safety recommendations and mandate that vehicle safety technology be standard equipment on all vehicles. Safety isn’t a luxury. NHTSA must also update the New Car Assessment Program, ASAP, to push auto manufacturers to implement, and drive consumer demand for, the safest technologies in vehicles.

Safe Roads

The nation’s roads were designed to efficiently move motor vehicles; they weren’t designed for the safe mobility of all road users. We have made no progress in recent years to prevent deaths among those who walk, bike, and roll on our nation’s roads. States must adopt the Safe System Approach and make infrastructure investments and improvements that prioritize the safety for vulnerable road users.

However, I’m increasingly concerned that many in the highway safety community don’t know how the Safe System Approach differs from the traditional, flawed approach of the 3E’s: education, enforcement, engineering. In other words, is this becoming just an “inside the beltway” term? We cannot let this moment pass us by. We need to ditch our overreliance on ineffective education and enforcement campaigns to address increasing death and look to much better, long-term solutions.

Safe Road Users

The NTSB cannot make safety recommendations to individual road users. Making safe choices is only something we can encourage and advocate for. We’ve seen individual choices contribute to the cause of countless highway crashes or severity of injuries. Distraction while driving or walking. Speeding. Impaired driving. Not buckling seat belts or wearing protective gear like helmets. All these choices have resulted in the devastating loss of life. We implore all road users to make safe choices to protect themselves and others. Many of the fatalities on our roadways would be prevented if safe choices were made every trip, every time.

Postcrash Care

The Safe System Approach accepts that crashes will happen, but that they should not be deadly. We must ensure that in the event of a crash, those involved have efficient access to the care and resources they need to live and recover. Our first responders—law enforcement, EMS, fire, and 911 personnel—need appropriate resources to serve our communities and respond to crashes. Law enforcement, EMS, and fire personnel need safe working environments free of the risk of secondary crashes.

A key principle of the Safe System Approach is shared responsibility. The entire system, our current approach to traffic safety, is failing all road users. We all—government, auto makers, policy makers, law enforcement, planners, engineers and, yes, road users—are failing. We must do better. I know that if we all come to the safety table and work together to implement the strategies that we know are successful, we can reach zero and save lives, both inside and outside vehicles.​

We have the tools to reverse the trend. Now we need everyone to act. Lives depend on it!

The 2021-2022 MWL After One Year: Noticeable Progress But Few Closed Recommendations

By Kathryn Catania, Acting Director, NTSB Office of Safety Recommendations and Communications

Since the unveiling a year ago of the 2021-2022 cycle of the NTSB’s Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements, we have seen increased awareness and discussion of safety items, high levels of engagement from the public, and incremental progress toward implementation of many recommendations.

In the past year, the NTSB has already successfully closed eight safety recommendations associated with this MWL cycle. But that is not enough. There are 167 other key recommendations that, if implemented, would save lives, and prevent injuries.

Soon after the unveiling of the MWL last year, NTSB Board members and staff sprang into action to educate, engage, and amplify the critical safety messages of our 10 safety improvements. Here’s a quick look by mode, starting with Highway, which makes up 5 of our 10 safety improvements. 

Highway

In recent years, we have increasingly expressed our highway safety goals in the language of the Safe System Approach—the very approach that we use in our own safety investigations. (We first discussed the approach in our 2017 report on reducing speeding.)

The Safe System Approach views every aspect of the crash as an opportunity to interrupt the series of events leading to it, and an opportunity to mitigate the harm that the crash does. People make mistakes, but safe roads, safe vehicles, safe road users, safe speeds, and post-crash care can combine to prevent the crash entirely, or failing that, to prevent the deaths or serious injuries of road users.

This paradigm shift applies to each of the highway safety improvements on the MWL, and is mentioned by name in “Protect Vulnerable Road Users Through a Safe System Approach,”

Between May 2021 and February 2022, we produced seven virtual roundtables to explain the approach and call for its adoption.  National and international experts discussed the approach and shared their successes and challenges. More than 1,000 advocates, regulators, academics, and others attended our webinars.

Included in the series hosted by Chair Homendy was a Safe Speeds Roundtable that explored the “Implement a Comprehensive Strategy to Eliminate Speeding-Related Crashes” safety improvement. Additionally, a “Behind the Scene @NTSB” podcast featured discussion on speeding and vulnerable road users.

In 2021, the Department of Transportation and Congress incorporated the approach into the DOT’s National Roadway Safety Strategy and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, respectively.

Will the new model result in lifesaving protections? Only final, and positive, closure of our recommendations will answer that. But the signs are very good, with the alignment of Congress, the DOT, and the road safety community.

Our MWL safety improvement, “Require Collision-Avoidance and Connected-Vehicle Technologies on all Vehicles,” could result in far superior situational awareness on our roads… if sufficient spectrum is available for the safety improvement.

Vehicle to everything (V2X) technology can save lives but has been delayed, and might be reduced or stopped, due to FCC rulings limiting the spectrum for safety operations. We released a four-part video series in which Member Graham interviewed some of the leading experts in V2X technologies—including academics, researchers, automakers, and policymakers—to discuss what can be done to find a way forward to deployment. 

In progress toward Eliminating Distracted Driving,  Vice Chairman Landsberg and staff joined government officials, industry, academia, insurers, and transportation safety advocates to announce the launch of a new National Distracted Driving Coalition. This is the first such broad national coalition on distracted driving.

We kept working with states considering lowering their BAC limit from .08 to .05 or lower, to help Prevent Alcohol- and Other Drug-Impairment. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has now evaluated the results from Utah, which has made the change to .05. Not surprisingly, the lower threshold prevented drinking and driving and saved lives. NHTSA’s study showed that the state’s fatal crash rate dropped by 19.8% in 2019, the first year under the lower legal limit, and the fatality rate decreased by 18.3%.

Aviation

To highlight our two aviation MWL safety items, “Require and Verify the Effectiveness of Safety Management Systems in all Revenue Passenger-Carrying Aviation Operations” and “​Install Crash-Resistant Recorders and Establish Flight Data Monitoring Programs,” we met with operators and pilots from the Helicopter Association International, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and National Business Aviation Association, among others. In webinars, podcasts, and at in-person national conferences, Board members talked with Part 135 and Part 91 operators and pilots to identify challenges. Our outreach meetings alone reached more than 1,500 operators nationwide.

Marine

With an increasing number of deadly fishing vessel accidents in recent years, Office of Marine Safety Director Morgan Turrell and Chair Homendy hosted a virtual roundtable on improving fishing vessel safety that was viewed by over 1,000 people. Panelists discussed what can be done to address commercial fishing safety, implement NTSB safety recommendations, and improve the safety of fishing operations in the United States.

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials

Our MWL calls for pipeline and hazardous materials (hazmat) stakeholders to “Improve Pipeline Leak Detection and Mitigation” by equipping all pipeline systems with leak-detection systems and automatic shutoff or remote-control valves. These valves allow for quick detection and mitigation.

Additionally, we produced a video featuring Member Michael Graham and Hazardous Materials Investigator Rachael Gunaratnam, which explores cases in which odorants failed as a natural gas leak-detection strategy, and promotes both required natural gas leak detectors, and voluntary adoption of such detectors until they are required.

Rail

To highlight the dangers to rail roadway workers and to help Improve Rail Worker Safety, Member Tom Chapman wrote a blog on rail worker safety, discussing how the railroad regulators—the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA)— are in the best position to make change.

We also completed our investigation of the April 24, 2018, accident in which an Amtrak rail watchman was killed in Bowie, Maryland. As a result of this investigation, we called on the FRA and Amtrak to put an immediate end to the use of train approach warning (TAW) systems as the sole method of on-track safety in areas covered by positive train control.

To mark the anniversary of the January 2017 train collision in Edgemont, South Dakota, we also issued a media statement again urging railroads to act to better protect rail roadway workers.

Looking ahead

We are pleased by the engagement of so many of our safety advocacy partners, industry groups, and associations in the past year, to promote our recommendations and highlight transportation safety concerns. Also, we acknowledge that many industry groups and operators are making voluntary efforts to improve safety, including on some of our recommendations. However, without mandates, many others may not act.

We remain disappointed by the lack of movement by regulators to implement the safety recommendations associated with our MWL. While there has been some progress during this first year, much more needs to be done to implement the 167 remaining safety recommendations associated with the current list. The longer these authorities wait to implement our recommendations, the greater the risk to the traveling public. Safety delayed is safety denied.

The NTSB will not stand by quietly and watch as regulators, industry, and other recommendation recipients ignore and dismiss our safety recommendations—and neither should the public. As NTSB Chair Homendy expressed in recent remarks to the largest highway safety gathering in the U.S, “The horrific toll of people who’ve died on our roads and their families… millions of people who were injured… are counting on us to “fight like hell” for the next family. To give a voice to those who no longer have one.” 

All our lives are on the line, and no death in transportation is acceptable. It is our mission to advocate for the changes outlined in our safety recommendations which, if implemented, will save lives.

Safety is a shared responsibility. We all play a role in getting us to zero transportation deaths. The NTSB cannot do this alone. We need each of you, individually and collectively, to help us advocate for these critical safety improvements.

NTSB Video Series Highlights Safety Benefits of Connected-Vehicle Technology, Raises Concern about Future of V2X

By Member Michael Graham

Today, the NTSB released a four-part video series: “V2X: Preserving the Future of Connected-Vehicle Technology.” Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) is one of the most promising life-saving technologies available today. While radars and sensors are limited to line-of-sight and are often impeded by inclement weather, V2X technology uses direct communication between vehicles and with infrastructure. Additionally, V2X technology increases the safety and visibility of vulnerable road users by alerting drivers to the presence of pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists that may be outside a driver’s or vehicle‑based sensor’s field of observation.

Despite the immense safety potential of V2X, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) recent actions threaten its basic viability. In May 2021, the FCC finalized the rulemaking to substantially reduce the available spectrum for V2X applications by 60 percent. This ruling retained only 30 MHz for transportation safety applications and invited interference from the surrounding bands from unlicensed Wi-Fi devices. Research by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) demonstrated that expected interference into the spectrum would further compromise the integrity of safety applications—rendering V2X untenable.

In this video series, I had the privilege of interviewing eight experts from government, industry, academia, and associations about the safety benefits and the maturity level of V2X technology, the reasons for its scarce deployment, and the impact of the FCC’s recent actions to limit the spectrum available for transportation safety.

I talked with some of the leading voices in the V2X space, including:

• Debby Bezzina, Center for Connected and Automated Transportation, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute
• Bob Kreeb, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Ken Leonard, US Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Joint Program Office
• Laura Chace, ITS America
• Scott Marler, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
• John Hibbard, Georgia Department of Transportation
• John Capp, General Motors
• John Kenney, Toyota

The NTSB first issued a safety recommendation to the FCC to allocate spectrum for V2X technology in 1995, and we continue to fervently believe in the promise of V2X technology to save lives.

This series was developed as part of the NTSB’s Most Wanted List safety topic, Require Collision-Avoidance and Connected-Vehicle Technologies on all Vehicles. I sincerely appreciate each of the eight guests who graciously agreed to participate in the series.

I encourage you to watch all four episodes of this series on the NTSB YouTube channel. You can learn more about the video series, including our featured guests and supporting research, on the NTSB’s V2X web page.