Memorial site with flowers on the side of the road to honor the victim of a traffic accident.
Traffic fatalities are trending downwards, according to the latest data released by USDOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Preliminary data released last month showed that fatal crashes were down by 2.2% during the first three quarters of 2019. While promising, there is no cause for celebration, as 26,730 people lost their lives on the road during this period – that’s one hundred people per day.
The absolute numbers are important, but the fatality rate is what really matters. Experts express the fatality rate as fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Since miles traveled during this time increased by about 1% while crashes were dropping, the rate is getting better. The first nine months of 2019 saw a rate of 1.10 fatalities per 100M VMT, compared to a rate of 1.13 during the same period in 2018.
Q3 2019 is the eighth quarter in a row with year-over-year declines. Although it’s too soon to say, I’m hoping that we are starting to see the effects of more Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) on the roads, which can intervene with braking or steering to avert a crash or at least mitigate the effects of a crash that does happen.
Quick physics lesson: the energy in a vehicle crash relates to the square of the velocity. Even modest reductions in speed make a big difference in human costs. In addition to fatalities, NHTSA tracks data showing the number of injury and property-damage-only crashes, splitting the information across vehicle type, geography, time of day, and many other categories. What the data can’t tell us is how many crashes were less severe due to warning or intervention from an ADAS system. For instance, how many recent injury crashes would have been a fatal crash without ADAS activation?
Humans are fallible. Some crashes result from innocent mistakes. But as noted by NHTSA Acting Administrator James Owens when releasing the latest figures, “Dangerous actions continue to plague drivers, such as speeding, distraction, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” It’s highly likely that cars equipped with ADAS are making these drivers a little less dangerous to the rest of us.
A unique category of irresponsibility comes with those drivers who are aware their vehicle cannot handle all situations, yet “tune out” anyway. A superb examination of this scary behavior was published by the Dutch Safety Board late last year. In one of several crashes they investigated, the issue of the inattentive Tesla driver once again rears its head. In this case, a Tesla Model S vehicle approaching a roundabout at 50 mph on the N57 road near Rotterdam plowed straight across a roundabout while Autopilot was activated. The Autopilot system did not give any warning and did not apply any form of braking. The data showed no driver intervention prior to the event, with the driver only braking once the car was crossing the central island of the roundabout. The Tesla collided with a pole on the other side of the roundabout and came to a standstill. Unfortunately, the driver suffered major injuries.
According to the Safety Board report, “upon receiving his car, the driver had a brief explanation of the systems in the vehicle. He also stated that he had taken most of the information about the functioning of Autopilot from the owner’s manual. The manual states that Autosteer is intended for use only on motorways.” Plus, and not surprisingly, “the manual does not give any warnings about roundabouts.”
In my view, most drivers are fundamentally responsible, including the Tesla variety. But there are too many exceptions and Dutch safety experts are highly concerned that Autopilot can be activated on a road with features that the system is not able to handle, particularly since the Tesla Model 3 was the best selling car in the Netherlands in 2019. The Safety Board report calls for manufacturers to develop and introduce systems “according to the principles of responsible innovation” and fully educate their customers on system limitations. Generally speaking, automakers say they are very much doing so on both counts.
As drivers, we are tempted like never before to take our eyes and attention off the road. Yet we are also more protected than ever before by tech that can serve as a backup – whether it’s on your car or the car next to you. In this transition period, it is good to see road fatality rates going down, even if we don’t yet know all the reasons.
