The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) will work with the National Road Safety Foundation (NRSF) to award a grant to an organization that can develop and implement a speed-management pilot program.
IIHS and GHSA hosted a national forum in April that brought together stakeholders to discuss ways to address the speed problem. Among the topics discussed were the public’s acceptance of speeding, rising speed limits, and enforcement challenges.
To be eligible for the grant, state agencies must propose an interdisciplinary, community-based program that combines countermeasures from various sectors, including law enforcement, government policy, and engineering.
The pilot program may serve as a model for nationwide implementation.
“Speed has remained a leading fatal crash factor for decades, and there is no way we will get to zero traffic deaths without prioritizing this persistent highway safety threat,” Michelle Anderson, NRSF director of operations, said.
Last year, 26 percent of crash deaths on U.S. roads were speed-related. There were more than 9,000 speed-related fatalities in 2018, an average of nearly 800 people per month.
Speeding increases the likelihood a crash will be fatal because it takes longer for a vehicle to slow down or stop.