Road-death surge calls for government action: Column

America’s roads are more deadly than roads in virtually any other rich nation of the world, when measuring deaths by population. But now we are exceeding our own grim performance with a 14% spike in U.S. road deaths over the past two years, the largest percentage increase in more than half a century.

To add perspective: In 2016, 40,200 people were killed on U.S. roads. That is equivalent to 100 fully-filled 747 planes crashing and more than triple the rate in the United Kingdom, Sweden or Switzerland. Most other developed nations also have fewer deaths.

For me, the cause is painfully personal. As a former acting surgeon general and chairman of an expert panel at Together for Safer Roads, and more importantly, as a husband and a father who lost a wife and a daughter in separate road crashes, I ask myself: How did we get here?

Some are quick to cite an improving economy as a reason for rising road deaths, since more Americans drive more miles in good times than in lean ones — especially with gas prices relatively low. Others cite increases in distracted driving and higher speed limits across the country.

But the main reason U.S. deaths are rising is more prosaic: Budget constraints in many states threaten to make it more difficult for them to effectively patrol roads when it comes to the most important causes of traffic deaths: speeding, impaired driving, and failure to buckle up. A recent Alabama study showed that some counties may have only one or two troopers on duty across a large swath of land.

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While the U.S. political mood is for less government and more laissez faire, what we need now, when it comes to road traffic crashes, is more political will, stronger regulation and resources for enforcement.

A patchwork of state laws has made it possible, in plenty of places in the U.S., to not wear your seatbelt if you don’t want to, to drive at 80 miles an hour if that pleases you, and to drive impaired by drugs or alcohol without worrying much about getting pulled over by a police officer.

Why is that?

Although half of road deaths happen to people not wearing seatbelts, 21 states don’t requireseat belts for some or all back seat occupants; New Hampshire doesn’t require usage at all. Fifteen states don’t permit their police officers to pull over a driver who is not wearing a seat belt. The driver must have triggered another violation first.

When it comes to impaired driving, the picture is just as bleak. Eleven states don’t have sobriety checkpoints and only eight require repeat drunk drivers to use an alcohol interlock, a device that prevents a car from starting if the driver’s breath alcohol exceeds the legal limit. Only 16 states have laws that make it illegal to drive with any measurable amount of certain drugs in the body.

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What about speeding?

Though one-third of traffic deaths are speed-related, 34 states raised their top speed limits on some roads since 1995. About 1,500 miles of roads have a limit of 75 miles per hour or more. Unlike the autobahn in Germany, many of these roads were not designed for high speeds.

States could make a dent in traffic deaths right away by requiring seat belts for all occupants and primary enforcement, installing cameras to catch speeding drivers even if a police officer is not present, require ignition locks for repeat drunk drivers, and funding police-level enforcement.

Imagine the outrage over 100 commercial plane crashes a year. Our state governments owe every American these actions to make our roads safer; we are all at risk today. They owe that as well to the many thousands whose lives were cut short, such as my wife and daughter.

Kenneth Moritsugu, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM, is retired rear admiral for the U.S. Public Health Service, former acting U.S. surgeon general and chair of the Together for Safer Roads Expert Panel.

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