Last year, according to the recently government statistics, 41,059 lives were lost on our roadways. This is lowest annual death toll we’ve seen since 1994 and the fatality rate reached a historic low. And from someone like me who believes in a zero death vision this is most certainly good news, even though we aren’t exactly sure what has caused these drops.

However, let us not forget the big picture. 41,059 deaths is a huge number – that is one death every 13 minutes. Although improvements have been made, it is clear there is still not enough being done to decrease the number of traffic related injuries and deaths. We recognize that driving these numbers down further will not be easy. However, with combined support of the traffic safety community and the public, we are confident a real difference can be made.

To maximize our impact, we are focusing our research and education efforts on four long-term focus areas that we hope will grow into Centers of Excellence. The four focus areas are Teen Driving Safety, Senior Safety and Mobility, Road Safety and Traffic Safety Culture. In all four areas we have an active agenda of multi-year research and education underway. For example, we have a comprehensive evaluation of novice driver training underway and a naturalistic study to examine both how parents and teens interact during the learning process, as well as what happens during the first six months of driving independently. Likewise, we have a robust set of activities in the senior safety and mobility arena.

Our Road Safety efforts remain focused on our usRAP (United States Road Assessment Program) pilot program. That effort, which involves rating the relative risk of road segments, has now spread into eight states. By year’s end, we will have completed the pilot phase and be ready to implement the program across the country, which we hope will extend to all 50 states.

And, as mentioned in our last newsletter the AAA Foundation took on our “safety culture” initiative because motorists, citizens and society in general are too complacent regarding the public crisis associated with motor vehicle crashes. One death should be unacceptable; so, why aren’t we outraged at one death every thirteen minutes?

We’ve been encouraged by the compliments we’ve received and the excitement around our four new focus areas. It is great to see these initiatives, most especially usRAP and Safety Culture being discussed at various national forums over the past several months. Hopefully, we can get and keep you more engaged in these efforts. 

Yours truly,

J. Peter Kissinger
President and CEO
AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety