Why Are Norwegian Drivers Safer Drivers Than Americans?

Drivers in Norway are safer than those in the US. Let's unpack way.
Drivers in Norway are safer than those in the US. Let’s unpack why.

This is part of an ongoing series in lessons on international perspectives in driving safety and culture. My goal is to shed light for American audiences on how the leading countries in auto safety (as measured by the lowest death rates per capita) manage the complex and dangerous relationship between human beings, our environments, and our automobiles.

I’ve written before about how Norwegian roads are among the safest on the planet and about how children in Norway are less likely to die due to traffic than children in virtually any other country on the planet. Today’s article focuses on some factors that tie into why drivers are less likely to be involved in fatal crashes in Norway than in the United States. To put it simply, Norwegian drivers are, on average, safer drivers than Americans. I wanted to find out why, so I learned about the process behind becoming a legal driver on Norwegian roads. The short of it is that by the time a licensed Norwegian driver gets behind the wheel for the first time, s/he has received far better training and is required to behave far more responsibly as a lifelong driver than the equivalent American driver. Let’s look into the how and why together.

1. Norwegian teens don’t drive until they turn 18

To get a category B driver’s license in Norway, which is necessary for driving a car, you need to be at least 18 years old. This is two years longer than in most states in the United States (with the exception of New Jersey, which doesn’t offer an intermediate license until 17, and South Dakota, which allows 14-year-olds to obtain licenses), which gives teenagers two more years to gain crucial cognitive maturity and supervised driving experience.

The provision of additional time for development and practice is particularly key when one notes that, in the United States, 16-19-year-olds have the highest rates of fatal crash involvement per mile for all drivers below the age of 80. Within that subset, 16-17-year-olds have nearly twice the rate of fatal crash involvement per mile as 18-19-year-olds. Norway bypasses the highest risk years by restricting eligibility for driving multi-ton vehicles until drivers are at least 18.

2. Norwegian driver’s education classes are among the most detailed on the planet

Driver’s education in Norway can be divided into three steps: taking the mandatory (and optional) courses, passing the theoretical test, and finally, passing the practical test. The coursework can be divided into four stages: basic traffic knowledge, basic driving skills, road traffic skills, and long-distance training.

In stage 1, you’re required to take courses on first aid and night driving. If you’re under 25, you also need to take a basic traffic course. The basic traffic course is 10 hours long, and the first aid course is 4 hours long and includes training on how to administer basic first aid and effectively convey information to first responders and emergency personnel. You also deal with a simulated crash scene involving crash test dummies. The night driving course is 3 hours long and involves an actual nighttime driving demonstration to illustrate the hazards drivers can encounter during night driving. Before you take any of this, you will typically also take a 45 minute driving assessment so the driving instructor at your driving school can assess your training level and determine whether you’d be likely to pass the practical test with only the mandatory courses or whether you’d also benefit from the optional courses.

In stage 2, you focus on basic driving techniques, including steering, braking, vehicle positioning, and parking. However, you also learn to locate basic parts of the car, including how to open the hood, check and apply wiper fluid, and more. To advance from stage 2 to 3, you need approval from your driving instructor, which comes after a 45-minute driving lesson and a self-assessment you conduct in concert with instructor feedback.

In stage 3, you focus on road traffic, in terms of navigating environments with numerous other vehicles while processing signs and other road information. There are 3 required hours of driving a closed course safety circuit, 3 hours of driving in a 2-lane road, and a 45 minute guidance class again with approval required for advancement. Within stage 3, you also will get slippery road training on the closed circuit. Within this training, you’ll drive on roads coated with oil and water to provide you with exposure to low-traction conditions. Once again, with instructor approval after your 45 minute driving lesson, you’ll be able to advance to stage 4.

In stage 4, you focus on final training before the theoretical and practice tests. There are 13 required hours that are a mixture of driving and theory (class time). No other stages involve class time besides parts of stage 1. The theoretical course presents risky driving situations and means of avoiding or mitigating them. Next comes a 5 hour long-distance driving course, during which you’ll spend up to 5 hours driving under supervision; you also get to practice emergency procedures you’d use if your car malfunctioned. Finally, you have a tour planning course where you need to plan (and then drive) an efficient route to get from point A to B (both selected by the trainer).

The theoretical test is 45 questions long and requires a 85% score (38 questions correct) to pass. If you fail, you need to wait for 2 weeks before you retake it. From then, you have 3 years to pass the practical test. The practical test includes a vehicular safety check, actual driving, and parking after the drive. You learn if you pass at the end of the test. If you fail, you need to wait for 4 weeks before retaking it and take additional courses in between.

In comparison, in the United States, the rules for driver’s licensure vary considerably from state to state due to federalism. However, applicants generally must complete some sort of driver’s training before completing a theoretical and then practical test. The requirements for training may be waived for drivers above a certain age (e.g., 18).

3. It can cost up to $4,000 to obtain a Norwegian driver’s license

In Norway, it’s not unusual to need to spend up to 30,000 NOK (~$4,000 USD) from start to finish in the process of becoming a licensed driver. When you consider the sheer number of mandatory and optional courses you might end up taking on the way to licensure, it’s not surprising. The goal behind the process isn’t simply to extract money from citizens, but to put them through a gauntlet that results in far better competence for beginning drivers there than that in drivers throughout most of the rest of the world.

In comparison, in the United States, it typically doesn’t take more than around $25 to obtain a permit and license, as the US doesn’t consistently require license candidates take professional driving courses, as is the case in Norway and numerous countries around the world. Some states (e.g., Maryland) require a minimal amount of coursework (e.g., 30 hours of class time and 6 hours of driving time), and prices for such courses can reach into the low-to-mid hundreds, which is overpriced for the pittance of hours actually spent driving.

While there is something undeniably democratic about making driver’s licenses essentially free, as they are in most parts of the United States, it does come at a cost, in that it invariably leads to far less trained drivers obtaining their licenses. Of course, each country could fully fund detailed and professional driver’s education (especially countries as rich as the United States and Norway), but it appears far more common to either offer free bare-bones universal training (as is the case in the United States through the public high school system) or expensive private professional training (as is the case in Norway). The Norwegian approach results in far fewer people driving, but it also does result in a significantly safer population behind the wheel, because you can’t just buy your way into a license–you need to do a lot of supervised driving along the way.

4. Every newly licensed driver faces a 2 year probationary period in Norway

It doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or 80; if you’ve passed all the tests, paid all the fees, and become a licensed driver for the first time in Norway, you’re considered to be on probation. It’s called a trial license, and it lasts for 2 years. During this period, it’s literally twice as easy to lose your license as it is when you aren’t in the probationary period.

Norway features a point system, where the accumulation of 8 points in 3 years leads to a temporary revocation of your driving license. Most traffic tickets result in an automatic 2 points. However, if you’re on a trial license, points are doubled. In other words, two traffic tickets in your first two years of driving means a revoked license. The revocation period is typically six months long. However, if it occurs during a trial license, you’ll need to take all of your tests again–both the theoretical (written) tests and the practical (driving) ones. And you don’t get to take them again until after your suspension ends, which means there’s no fast-forwarding the process.

In the US, new and young drivers typically face various forms of probation upon license acquisition, but once again, the details can vary considerably from one state to the next.

Why is the US so much more freewheeling about driving compared to Norway?

The difference in the driving culture between the two countries is likely due to a variety of reasons. However, one of the most pertinent is the US’ much greater identification with the automobile than that present in Norway. This, of course, is largely due to deliberate collusion between the auto industry and the government in the early 20th century, as our highway systems, grid-based cities, and auto-centric living spaces and spacing didn’t arise by accident (or else they would exist in equal degree throughout fellow rich nations, and they most certainly do not). To put it simply, Americans were programmed to view auto travel as the only reasonable means of travel, and our lives were largely spaced in ways that reinforced this line of thought. As a result, it was necessary to make car access as easy as possible for the average person (this also explains credit access in the US, which is far less regulated than its equivalent in fellow rich countries).

How do we change this culture?

We need to drive less, drive more carefully, and advocate for the return of human-centric (and not auto-centric) living spaces. That means lower speeds, fewer cars, more space for people–pedestrians, children, cyclists, the elderly. It means a lot of changes in the long term. It means alternative transportation options–bicycles, buses, trains. And in relation to auto travel, it means following and advocating Vision Zero principles. Every human has the right to live without fear of dying from auto traffic.

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Jacob Griffith, 36, Son Wyatt, 6, Killed in West Des Moines, IA Crash

Who

Jacob Griffith, 36, from Urbandale, Iowa, and his son, Wyatt, 6, died at around 7:53 PM Wednesday night, December 21st, 2016, in West Des Moines, Iowa in a collision with a support pillar beneath the 50th Street overpass on I-235.

Griffith’s daughter survived the collision with life-threatening injuries, was taken to blank Children’s Hospital, and was most recently described as in critical condition.

The vehicle was a white large pickup truck that appears to be a mid-to-late 2000-era Ford F-150 quad cab.

How

The exact details of the collision are as yet unknown, but Griffith appears to have been heading eastbound on I-235 with his children in the back seats of the pickup truck. He then crashed into a concrete support pillar at a high rate of speed, although it is not yet clear whether or not he had been speeding. Both Griffith and his son died at the scene. Witnesses at the scene broke the rear windows of the crashed truck to extricate the two children from the rear seats, and Griffith’s daughter was transported to the hospital. Witnesses described the crash as severe.

“It was just surrounded by police and I saw a guy pulling, wiping blood off his hands and everything else” said Cole Ledbetter.

Ledbetter said he knew the instant he saw the crash that it was as bad as it looked.

“I told my girlfriend, ‘that one doesn’t look good’ and as soon as we saw the front end of the truck I turned to her and said ‘somebody didn’t make it in that’” he said.

Why

On the surface, this appears to have been a tragic case of poor driving that claimed the life of a father and one of his children while severely injuring another. Investigators haven’t provided any information regarding why Griffith left the road and drove into the support pillar, but such cases are almost always due to driver error; there are very few mechanical issues in vehicles that lead to fatalities in comparison to human mistakes.

Poor Infrastructure

One of the most significant elements of the collision involved the poorly designed concrete support pillars of the concrete underpass. As visible in this image,  there were no barriers around the support pillars capable of preventing a vehicle from driving directly into them. This reflects the dominant approach to road safety found today in the US, wherein individual drivers are responsible for their safety. While this sounds like a common-sense approach, it’s not best practices, and it’s not what the countries with the lowest death rates (those following Vision Zero policies) are doing. A simple barricade running parallel to the road and tapering around the concrete pillars could have either prevented vehicles from crashing directly into the barriers or at the very least ameliorated any potential collisions, saving the lives of father and child in this collision.

Restraint Use

I was also unable to find much additional information regarding the speed of the vehicle upon impact or if and how the children were harnessed. There are certainly crash speeds that make collisions unsurvivable for all occupants in a given vehicle, but given the fact that the daughter did survive the collision, it was certainly survivable at some level. I did find what appeared to be a Graco black low back booster thrown from the vehicle (next to a child’s shoe) in an on-site image, suggesting at least one of the children was boostered. However, boosters aren’t appropriate restraints for children before the age of 8, and neither child was 8 years old. The image additionally shows severe intrusion in the front cabin and second row, significantly reducing the survival space for all occupants. I would tentatively hypothesize that the deceased child may have been sitting immediately behind his father. This video indicates the daughter was in a car seat (it looks like a Graco combination seat), which likely saved her life.

It’s possible that if the son had been in a harnessed seat, as best practice suggests for children under 8 who are no longer rear-facing, he might have survived the collision. However, it’s impossible to provide any answers without additional information, and that information isn’t forthcoming at the moment. The most pertinent factor in the survival of the children, of course, involved whatever led the father to crash to begin with.  Why did he drive into the barrier? What happened in the pickup immediately before the collision? Or was everything normal everywhere but inside Griffith’s head?

Whatever the reason, additional information regarding the history of Griffith also raises questions.

According to court records, Griffith’s wife had filed for an order of protection against him this past August due to threats against her life, against himself, and against police officers. Records then indicate that in September, a new agreement was set in place wherein Griffith could no longer contact his wife but did have temporary custody of his son and daughter. Specifically, he was granted visitation rights on Wednesday evenings between 5 PM and 8 PM. The fatal collision occurred just before 8 PM on a Wednesday. It’s possible that he might have been driving back to the police department to return his children. Was he simply in a hurry to get back within the boundaries of his custody? The fact that his children appear to have been restrained suggests that he had planned on arriving alive.

While there is no way of knowing exactly what was going through Griffith’s mind in the moments before the crash, I have to wonder if his relationship with his wife might have affected his world view or the decisions he made when driving with his children. We may never know. What is certain, sadly, is that his wife has been left without her husband and one of her children, with the other between life and death. I can only wish her and her surviving child the best.

What to do

Tragedies like these leave us with more questions than answers, and more grief than solace. However, because we always look for ways to protect ourselves and our loved ones, no matter how little we can do in the end, there are at least a few things we can take away from this sad, sad day. Please pay attention when driving, whether with or without your children. Remember that you can cut your risk of death by auto in half simply by driving safely, which is a greater boost than that possible by buying the safest cars on the road.

Use the proper restraints for your children every single time you install them in a vehicle. That means rear-facing from birth through preschool years (ideally until 4!), before forward-facing them in harnessed convertible or combination seats (ideally until 8!). Once they outgrow their harnessed seats, it’s best to keep them restrained in high-back boosters until they’re physically and psychologically ready to use adult seat belt systems (which typically happens between 10 and 12). These steps take a bit of work to do and to keep up with, but they can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Above all, we need to continue to look toward new ways of thinking and design our infrastructure in ways that help reduce the risks present in road travel. We can’t control how people think when driving, but we can design roads to have fewer blindingly obvious deathtraps like unguarded concrete pillars mere feet away from 70 mph traffic.

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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans
The Swedish approach to car seat safety doesn’t have to be a secret.

The Swedish approach to child car seat safety is deceptively simple, yet it results in the best child traffic safety numbers on the planet. Virtually no children die from traffic incidents in Sweden each year, and this has been the case for many years now. As far as child traffic safety is concerned, they are the standard (although their western neighbor, Norway, has followed their example, and is now demonstrating stunningly low child death rates in traffic as well). I like learning from people doing things well.

Of course, the world-class results aren’t simply due to how they restrain kids in cars–there are a number of other factors that tie in, nearly all of which are related to Vision Zero principles, a practical and philosophical belief in Sweden that no one, adult or child, should die from traffic incidents. This manifests itself in areas like nation-wide laws requiring driving with headlights on 24/7, using snow tires throughout the winter months, an acceptance of traffic cameras everywhere, extremely low alcohol limits for driving, $2000 driving licenses, and traffic speeds and road designs based on the trauma limits of the human body.

But today’s article isn’t about any of these factors, although I love writing about them. Today’s article is a quick guide to how Swedes approach car seats with their kids. Today, we’ll pretend we’re Swedish parents, and look at the kinds of seats they choose and why. The great news is that the Swedish approach is rather simple, yet quite effective, as evidenced by the near-nonexistent death rates for young children from traffic. There are only three main seats used: the infant seat, the rear-facing convertible, and the high back booster.

What kinds of car seats do Swedish parents use with infants and babies?

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans
A KeyFit 30 is affordable and takes seconds to install; it’s a great choice for the first 6-9 months of your infant’s life.

The first car seat nearly all Swedish children use is the infant seat (known as the cradle abroad). This is essentially the same approach as in the US; the infant seat is easy to carry and can be moved in and out of a vehicle without waking a sleeping baby (very important). Swedish parents will typically use it for the first six to nine months of life. Naturally, it’ll be rear-facing.

A great example of an equivalent infant seat in the US is the Chicco KeyFit 30. It doesn’t need to have a high height or weight limit; that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s easy to install and easy to carry. It’ll be used for less than a year before parents get tired of carrying it and switch to the next seat.

What comes after the infant seat, and how long do the Swedes use it?

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans
The Clek Fllo is one of the two narrowest car seats on the market that rear-faces until 50 pounds. The other is its twin, the Clek Foonf.

After the infant seat, the Swedes, well-versed in the importance of extended rear-facing, invest in a rear-facing convertible seat. The typical Swedish family will rear-face until 4-5 even though there isn’t actually a law in the country requiring parents to do so. What you’ll find is a deep cultural knowledge of the value of rear-facing due to an effective and long-lasting public awareness campaign began by the government and media with guidance from research conducted throughout the country.

Parents don’t feel like outliers when rear-facing until 4-5 because everyone else is doing it; it isn’t known as “extended rear-facing” there, and parents don’t have to justify to fellow parents or spouses why they haven’t turned their car seats around. It’s just what you do.

 

An Extend2Fit will let you rear-face most kids until 5 and forward-face most kids until at least 6 while costing well under $200.
An Extend2Fit will let you rear-face most kids until 5 and forward-face most kids until at least 6 while costing well under $200.

In Sweden, you can buy car seats that allow you to rear-face all the way to 55 pounds, potentially allowing rear-facing until 6 or even longer. In the US, our best seats–The Graco Extend2Fit, Clek Fllo, Diono Rainier, Clek Foonf, and Diono Pacifica–allow you to rear-face until 50 pounds, which is a great improvement over how the car seat scene looked just a few years ago here. Fifty pounds will be enough to allow you to make it until 4 or 5, which is how long you’ll find the typical Swedish child rear-facing. The kids don’t protest it there because their parents treat it as normal, as do their grandparents and everyone else they come into contact with.

Among seats available in the United States, the Extend2Fit is one of my favorite examples for this phase, as it not only features one of the highest weight limits at 50 lbs, it also features the highest height limit (it’s 49″, or the same as the forward-facing height limit), which means you’ll might even be able to rear-face until 6 or 7 if you really want to, depending on the height of your child.

In comparison, in the US, children are only required to rear-face until 1 in all but 4 states, and 75% of children are forward-facing by their 2nd birthday. That’s too soon. Aim for at least 4 if at all possible.

What comes after rear-facing in Sweden, and for how long? And what about harnessed seats?

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans
A RodiFix will let you booster your kids from 5 until 12, safely restraining them from kindergarten until adolescence, when they’ll no longer need car seats.

Once parents stop rear-facing in Sweden, they don’t typically use harnessed forward-facing seats. In fact, the general Swedish perception is that booster seats are actually safer than forward-facing seats for children of an appropriate age (i.e., 4+). The reasons for this involve research in Sweden regarding how the harness system may put more load on the neck by restraining the rest of the body (and allowing the neck to snap forward), compared to how the body moves more completely when in a seat belt, spreading forces across the body.

As a result, parents will typically move from a rear-facing convertible directly to a high-back booster. The particular booster they choose doesn’t matter too much as long as it’s a high-back booster; the reason behind this is that they keep the child in place even if she or he falls asleep in the car.

 

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans
The Oobr is an excellent dual stage booster; it can be used in high-back or backless modes as your child grows.

Three of the best dedicated boosters on the market today are the Clek Oobr, Peg Perego Flex 120, and Maxi-Cosi RodiFix, and I’d give the edge to the RodiFix because, like most Swedish car seats (and European ones in general), it doesn’t feature cup holders. The lack of arm rests also means your kids won’t get the seat belts stuck on them while buckling themselves in. If you’re on a smaller budget, the Britax Parkway also does a great job. Whichever seat you choose, it’s worth looking for ones that include LATCH connectors, as these will allow you to permanently attach the seats to your vehicle, preventing them from becoming projectiles when they aren’t buckled in.

Swedish parents use booster seats as long as the law requires (there is a law here regarding this), which is until they’re 135 cm tall, or 53″ tall. This is a rather common law throughout the EU.

But aren’t harnessed forward-facing seats safer than booster seats?

A Guide to Swedish Child Car Seat Safety for Americans
The Frontier ClickTight is a great combination option for parents who want to harness their children forward-facing before boostering them.

It’s a common belief in the US that forward-facing harnessed seats are safer than booster seats, and this is true in certain contexts. It’s true when children should still absolutely be rear-facing (i.e., under 4), simply because children who are boostered too early are at tremendous risk for suffering abdominal injuries or submarining out of their car seats.

Even beyond 4, children who don’t sit properly will be safer in harnessed seats (which force them to sit correctly) than in boosters, where they can move themselves out of safe positions. However, once children are mature enough to sit properly (i.e., straight up in the centers of their seats), there is no safety difference between harnessed forward-facing seats and booster seats. The NHTSA recommends waiting until 8 (or until children outgrow their forward-facing seats) to cover all bases here, but it’s likely that most children who are 6 or older will be able to sit appropriately enough to use booster seats.

When do Swedish parents stop using car seats and just use seat belts?

Swedish parents typically stop using car seats and switch their kids to seat belts once they’re at least 135 cm (53″) tall. See the NTF’s responses for more information here. Their recommendations are generally in line with those of the NHTSA, which recommend that children stay in booster seats until they have good belt fit, which they state is generally around when they’re between 8 and 12 years old.

Do you recommend following the Swedish approach to car seat selection?

Absolutely. The American in me wants to suggest harnessed forward-facing seats over boosters, but the evidence doesn’t support their being necessary for most children beyond 5 or 6. I do think the 5-step test for seat belt readiness is a good idea, but I also think the harness/booster debates and 5-step test aren’t nearly as important as the core element of rear-facing as long as possible. If you take nothing else from this, take that and spread the word.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can shop here for Canadian purchases. Have a question or want to discuss best practices? Send me an email at carcrashdetective [at] gmail [dot] com.

To Avoid Dying in a Collision, Avoid Undivided Roads 100% of the Time

To avoid dying in a head-on collision, avoid driving on roads that look like this.
To avoid dying in a head-on collision, avoid driving on roads that look like this.

This is the latest post in a series on the IRTAD report I’ve been reading, Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift to a Safe System. It’s basically a field guide to how countries around the globe have made strides in developing Safe Systems / Vision Zero / Toward Zero approaches, and it’s well worth reading. I’m a fan of the Safe System approach, and have written a number of articles related to the fundamental message that all human lives matter, and none should be–or need to be–lost due to auto crashes. I’ve included a brief listing of recent articles below. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, you’ll want to check them out. If you are, skip below; there’s more information than ever about the importance of avoiding undivided roads when driving.

Isn’t safe driving just about having the newest safety materials in my car?

It’s a common misconception that auto safety is simply a question of buying the newest car possible. While that can help, the truth is that the majority of what affects our survival on the roads has to do with how and where we drive followed by what we drive. A Safe System focuses on all three factors but gives extra importance to the where, because it’s much easier to change than the human behavior, the how, yet can be much more effective, especially with a bit of help from the how and what.

Previous Safe System articles on the how and where I’ve written involve  the top speeds for survivable protected and unprotected collisions, the magic of 43 mph as a survivability speed , how to ensure pedestrian safety, reasons why traffic cameras are our friends, how to double driving safety overnight, how driving less increases overall safety, reasons to drive with head lights, the safest road lanes, the benefits of snow tires, the impact of speed on kinetic energy, why it’s safer for adults to drive in Norway, why kids are safer in Norway, why Europe is safer for drivers, different standards in auto safety around the world, which are the safest and most dangerous states, and how speeding is the magic bullet.

To put it simply, this is my passion. There’s a lot we can do to increase our road safety as individuals, but the biggest changes come from changing the way our society views road safety, and the collective responsibility we have to make our roads safe for everyone. To that end, my most recent article on the topic involves ending the blame game and assuming a more humanistic, cooperative, and ultimately effective approach toward safer roads.

OK, I’m up to speed. What does the report say about driving safety in relation to undivided roads?

On page 92, the report notes:

Divided roads were the most effective factor in avoiding fatalities among vehicle occupants.

Slightly later, on page 92, we read:

An example of a “primary” Safe System treatment [is] a median barrier, as this will virtually eliminate (in over 90% of cases) fatal head-on crashes, while a “supportive” treatment would be a wide centreline with rumble strips that will make them less likely. It is strongly recommended that the primary treatments are employed where possible.”

This is the kind of road you want to drive on whenever possible.

This is significant. We have research suggesting the single most effective way of avoiding vehicle fatalities are to use divided roads, or to not use
undivided roads. What is a divided road? That’s answered within the second quotation; it’s a road system with a median barrier that divides two opposing lanes of traffic.  To put it another, more visual way, it’s a road that looks like the one on the left. Divided roads aren’t nearly as visually appealing as undivided ones, but they’re much, much safer. This is also why interstates are traditionally the safest kinds of roads we can drive on per mile, despite featuring the highest speeds–it’s because they’re inherently designed to avoid vehicles crashing into each other at high rates of speed.

What can we do? Do we simply avoid all undivided roads?

In a word, yes! Whenever possible, drive on divided roads. However, it’s not always that simple. Let’s answer the “what can we do?” question with a bit more detail.

If we know divided roads are the most significant factor in reducing vehicle fatalities, what do we do with this information? Well, we can certainly call or write letters to our local, state, and federal departments of transportation. We can advocate for change and point to reports like the IRTAD report above. However, while waiting and advocating for change on larger levels, we can take action on an individual level. This is where change begins. We lower that 35,000 annual fatality figure one saved life at a time.

We can drive on the kinds of roads we know from research are safest, and avoid undivided roadways whenever possible. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll continue to do so as long as I read or write about stories involving fatalities on undivided roads. These are the quintessential “drifting across the midline” crashes; they’re the ones where one vehicle inadvertently enters the opposing lane of traffic and isn’t stopped until it crashes directly into another vehicle. They are violent and bloody and unnecessary. They can be all but eliminated simply by installing barriers between the lanes. Until that day comes, and these kinds of roads are eliminated or speed limited (remember that Safe System practices dictates a 43 mph limit for undivided roads), your best bet is to avoid them as much as you possibly can. You literally cut your odds of being involved in a fatal head-on crash (which, by the way, is the most frequent fatal multi-vehicle collision) by 90%–almost completely–by avoiding these kinds of roads.

Don’t wait for your state department of transportation to catch up to best practices. Start living them, and spread the word.

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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

Rather than “Blame and Shame”, See Road Safety as a Human Right

For long-term road safety, we need to move beyond blaming the individual road user.
For long-term road safety, we need to move beyond blaming the individual road user.

Lately, I’ve been reading a 2016 report by IRTAD titled Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift to a Safe System. It’s just under 200 pages long, but it’s a great introduction to Vision Zero / Safe System / Toward Zero policies and philosophies across the globe, including within the US. I’ve written about Safe Systems in the past several times (e.g., regarding top speeds for survivable collisions, the magic of 43 mph, pedestrian safety, traffic cameras), as I strongly agree with the fundamental message that no human loss of life due to auto traffic is acceptable, and that virtually all can be prevented.

Much of the report has to do with paradigm shifts, or the necessary changes we have to undergo as a society in terms of how we perceive road safety in order to create safer environments for all road users. This evening, I found this passage to be a particularly well-written one describing necessary shifts in perspectives on road safety. It’s on page 47 in a section about creating a greater demand for road safety among citizens.

A highly effective way to engage politicians, policy makers and system designers in a debate on a Safe System is to create increased demand for road safety among citizens. The traditional societal view holds that road users bear the main responsibility for road safety hazards. It is they who should be “blamed and shamed” for incidents and measures should focus on correcting their irresponsible behaviour. In contrast, a Safe System is based on the notion that road users are citizens with rights and should be able to take part in road traffic without risking death or serious injury – even if and when they make simple human mistakes. A Safe System also posits that road safety is a shared responsibility, and thus gives citizens the right to demand safe road traffic from society.

Isn’t that just wonderful? And at the same time, completely removed from how most of us view road safety in the United States, and how most discussions regarding road safety are framed? Independence and self-reliance are highly valued traits in US society (as reflected in our lack of universal health insurance, a unique position among fellow rich nations, or our lack of guaranteed maternal leave, a unique position among all but a handful of other countries across the globe). However, the societal importance we place on a lack of reliance on society frequently results in negative consequences for many, many individuals who in aggregate, make up…society.

As a result, when a crash occurs, we look for who is at fault. This is hardly unique to the US, but our conclusions are almost always the same–we blame the end user, the driver. Whether it’s the driver who drove off the road and into a tree or the driver who talked on the cell phone and drove into the opposing lane or the driver who took the turn too fast and rolled the vehicle, there’s always a driver we can blame, and that’s where our crash investigations end. We need to get rid of the bad drivers or at least beat them into becoming better ones. If not for bad drivers, there wouldn’t be collisions, and everyone would be fine.

How else could we examine a crash besides blaming the driver?

While this is an accurate way to look at the problem, it’s not the only way to do so. More importantly, it’s rarely the best way, presuming the goal is to reduce the number of fatalities and serious crashes. The reason why this approach, dubbed “blaming and shaming” in the section above, is ineffective, is because people, by definition, are fallible. Whether the driver leaves the road because he was playing with the radio or because she was trying to avoid a deer or because he was tired or because she was trying to calm her children in the back row, the ultimate point is that the driver is leaving the road.

A Safe System focuses on how to protect the driver, passengers, and anyone else in the vicinity once that road-leaving-event is imminent. That might take the form of a more forgiving shoulder that has a guide-rail that can keep a vehicle from completely leaving the road. It might look like a ditch that has been removed, significantly reducing the risk of a fatal rollover. It might look like a wire fence installed to keep the vehicle away from trees and telephone poles. It might look like a lower speed limit on the road that reduces the likelihood of leaving the road to begin with, or any number of other features. It might be in the vehicle itself, which is equipped with lane-departure warning systems and ESC to help the driver maintain control during emergency maneuvers. Should the driver actually leave the road, it might look like a rapid emergency response service capable of reaching the road within minutes to perform first aid and hospital transport.

This is a different way of looking at collisions and road safety. The focus in all of these cases is to provide redundancy to a.) reduce the likelihood of a collision occurring, b.) mitigate the severity of an imminent collision, and c.)  provide life-saving response services to maximize survivability after the collision occurs. More broadly, the fault isn’t automatically assigned to the road user, should the unfortunate or unthinkable happen. The responsibility is shared among everyone who plays a role in the design of the road, the vehicles that traverse it, and the people within and without those vehicles. The road users are expected to be responsible, yes, but they aren’t expected to be perfect, because, being human, they never will be. They’re given rights–the rights to expect safe roadways and safe vehicles, and the rights to expect to live when they or their loved ones use these roadways.

This is the mentality behind a Safe System / Vision Zero approach. People are valuable, and we need to design systems to protect them, rather than to blame them for being imperfect whenever they inevitably behave like humans.

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35,000 Americans will die this year on the road. You don't have to be one of them. A car seat and car safety blog to promote best practices for families.