Role of education in reducing highway toll

By: James Crowe

Date: Wednesday, 14. July 2010

This article originally appeared in Vol. 4, Number 2 of Driver/Education, in June, 1994

Dr. Crowe is Chairperson of the Department of Applied Health Science School of HPER at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

In past years we talked about Engineering, Enforcement and Education as the three strategies for reducing highway death and disability. Now it's time to take a look at how the three have fared in recent years and, in particular, how education has fared in comparison.

Engineering

In the Highway Safety Act of 1966, the U.S. Congress clearly mandated that every state have a program of highway design, construction, and maintenance to improve highway safety. 1 States were also mandated to have a program relating to the use of traffic control devices (signs, markings, and signals) and other traffic engineering measures to reduce traffic accidents.

The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1968 gave automobile manufacturers specific standards for the development of safer vehicles. 2 A few of many early design changes included protective head restraints, improved door latches, hinges, and locks, interior impact protection, and ornamental exterior protrusion restrictions.

In recent years, safety design has progressed to air bags, antilock braking systems, side impact protection, safety cage construction, and front/rear crumple zones, to name just a few. The future will bring side impact air bags, night-time and inclement weather vision aids, collision warning radar systems, lane sensing systems, integrated chassis control systems, and crash avoidance systems. 3

Bottom-line assessment would indicate that the past, the present, and the future for highway vehicle safety from an engineering standpoint has been, and will be, very much in keeping with the intent of the law.

Enforcement

The Highway Safety Act spelled out stricter guidelines for enforcement, particularly in the areas of alcohol consumption, traffic courts, driver licensing, and uniform traffic codes. 1 Each state was mandated to develop and implement a program to achieve a reduction in traffic accidents resulting from persons driving under the influence of alcohol.

States were mandated to reduce their blood alcohol limits to 0.10. Each state was mandated to have a program to assure that all traffic courts within its political subdivisions "shall have a program to complement and support local and state-wide traffic safety objectives." 1

Additional standards and advances were mandated in driver licensing to ensure that only persons physically and mentally qualified would be licensed to operate a vehicle on our highways. Standardized programs to develop and complement uniform traffic codes and laws throughout the nation were achieved. 1

A review of past progress and indications of future developments would show that considerable progress has been made in this nation toward enforcement as outlined by the 1966 Highway Safety Act.

Education

At the same time these standards were set for better engineering and enforcement, standards were also mandated for the improvement of public and private driver education courses and for making them more widely available.

The standards mandated the implementation of state programs for driver education in school systems, or a significant expansion and improvement for programs already in existence. Additional requirements included the training and certification of qualified school instructors, appropriate regulation of other training schools, including licensing of the schools and certification of their instructors, and programs for new adult drivers as well as for retraining selected driving violators. 1

Where we're at now

So where do we stand on the three E's 27 years after the mandates of the 89th Congress in 1966?

Significant advances can be identified in highway and vehicle engineering, particularly in relation to safety. Enforcement has improved significantly in many areas, including alcohol and driving, better licensing requirements, and in general, more city, county, and state police equipped with high-tech communication and detection equipment to apprehend traffic violators. 4,5,6

However, the mandates related to education have been ignored to the degree that formal instruction programs lag far behind what they were 27 years ago.

What happened?

Public school driver education, in many states, has been determined to be a frill because of its perceived financial burden to the public school system. The decline, while gradual, has been consistent and is now reflected by data showing the current status across the nation. 7 A study in 1988 showed the trend of driver education enrollments is clearly on the decline for most states, with only four states reporting an increase in enrollments. 8 Data in 1991 revealed a decline in enrollments in 50 percent of those states participating in a study assessing driver education funding models.

The interest in public school driver education has dwindled throughout the nation to the degree that, in the 1991 study, only 21 State Directors were able to identify the number of potential students that became eligible each year to take driver education in their state. 7

While financial considerations played an important role in this decline, school administrators cited scheduling problems interfering with the regular school curriculum as an excuse to restrict or abolish existing driver education programs. 9 In spite of the fact that the initial standards called for schools to "offer driver education to every student of licensing age," 1 school administrators came to their own interpretation that one course in summer school met the intent of the law. That is, that driver education was being offered to every student in the school; however, it was just not available to every student. As a result of such irrational thinking, we now have the continuing and gradual demise of a very important program. 7

Additionally, a number of studies suggest that it is the financially disadvantaged student who is being deprived of the opportunity for formal driver education instruction. 7,8,10 State Directors report that fees charged by the public schools to take a driver education course have restricted enrollments to those students (or their parents) who can afford what often amounts to an exorbitant supplemental charge (reported to be as high as $630 in one state).

These studies further reported that the supplemental fees, or the unavailability of formalized instruction, is causing large numbers of young people to drive without a license which, in turn, usually means driving as an uninsured motorist.

Therefore, a review of the past and present clearly indicates that the role of education in relation to highway safety has suffered many setbacks in the past, is under heavy scrutiny at the present, and may be doomed to failure in the future.

There is little doubt that many of the problems have arisen internally, amongst the community of people that should have been working diligently to support education programs. Additionally, people in enforcement and engineering have occasionally professed a belief in being able to resolve all highway problems through enforcement and engineering approaches.

While these people are to be commended for their vigorous and energetic approach to the problem, and while they cannot be blamed for the failures of education, they have certainly come to realize that the education dimension is a vital link in achieving total success.

There is no question that enforcement and engineering have been major contributors to reducing our annual highway fatalities from a high of 56,278 deaths in 1972 to 40,300 deaths in 1992. Those of us in education know that our nation has the lowest death rate per hundred million miles of travel of any nation in the world. 11

We also know that our nation has far more passenger cars and licensed drivers than any other nation, and a total number of highway fatalities that far exceeds every other nation of the world except Russia. In contrast to over 40,000 killed in the U.S. each year, besides Russia, the next highest death totals are Japan, with 14,400 fatalities; Mexico, 12,300; France, 10,000; and Germany, 7,400.

What price are we willing to pay for owning more vehicles than any other nation? Will our country continue to tolerate an average of 114 deaths per day? 12 In 1992, 2.2 million disabling injuries occurred from motor vehicle crashes. 11

Can we continue the associated cost of these crashes that now burdens our economy to the extent of over $156 billion per year, a trend that has shown considerable annual increases over the past several years? 11 Safer vehicles are lowering our motor vehicle deaths but are leaving a drastically increasing number of disabling injuries and creating a spiraling record of pain and suffering, along with a heavy burden on our medical care system.

Motor vehicle accident victims tend to occupy medical facilities far longer than other patients (often for weeks, months, or even years), with higher demand for care from nurses, physicians, and other medical staff, and a consequent financial drain on our health care system.

Where do we go from here?

Our nation's goal to reduce deaths caused by motor vehicle crashes is obtainable only if we are able to educate adolescents and young adults at a time when developing habits and behaviors are most likely to become permanent, that is, ages 15 through 24. 13

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that traffic fatalities accounted for almost 43% of all deaths in 1991 among persons 15 to 19 years old. 12 In spite of highway and vehicle engineering improvements, driver error still accounts for 94% of all crashes. 3

We are building better highways and safer vehicles that are still being crashed in record numbers by uneducated drivers. It remains a mystery why this nation is willing to accept only gradual declines in death rates related to highway accidents when, as a nation, we strive for much better records related to illness, injury, or death from other causes. 13 We must believe that the educational process can be as successful in educating drivers as our schools have been in educating young people in other disciplines, i.e., English, math, science, etc.

We must not give up. We must press our local, state, and federal representatives to assist in the educational process with special financial support from new or existing sources. 7 We must commend manufacturers for their advances in safety design and, at the same time, plead for them to once again return to the generous vehicle loan programs of earlier years. 7,8

By working through local dealers and manufacturers, and with a pledge from school personnel to do a better job of maintaining vehicles, we will make significant strides in the right direction.

As the nation with the highest number of vehicles and registered drivers in the world, we are continuing to compound the driving process while shirking our responsibility in preparing our young people to drive this complex piece of machinery on newer, better, and more crowded highways. Let's pull together to put the third "E" back into the old axiom of Engineering, Enforcement, and Education.

REFERENCES

1. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (1967). National Highway Safety Standards, Washington, DC.

2. Public Law 89-563 (1966). National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act Washington, DC.

3. Panel presentation entitled "Auto Manufacturers Technology Panel (Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Chrysler)." 37th Annual Conference of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, Novi, Michigan, August 1-5, 1993.

4. Skinner, D. and Hoxie, P. (1988). Effects of Seat Belt Laws on Highway Fatalities: Update, April 1988 Project Memorandum DOT TSC HS870 PM 88 5. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

5. Escobedo, Luis G., Chorba, Terence, and others (1992). "The influence of safety belt laws on self-reported safety belt use in the United States." Accident Analysis and Prevention, 24(6):643-653

6. Bjornskau, Torkel and Elvik, Rune (1992). "Can road traffic law enforcement permanently reduce the number of accidents?" Accident Analysis and Prevention 24(5):507-520.

7. Crowe, James W. (1992). "A national assessment of driver education funding models." ADTSEA Journal of Traffic Safety Education, 40(4)8,9,15,16,24.

8. Crowe, James W. and Torabi, Mohammad R. (1988). "A national study of driver education in public schools: Status and implication." ADTSEA Journal of Traffic Safety Education 35(2)18-19.

9. Crowe, James W. and Torabi, Mohammad R. (1988). "A national study of driver education in public schools: Status and implication," p. 18.

10. Crowe, James W. (1986). "School driver education status in the state of Indiana: Warning signals." Indiana Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance Journal 15(4)17,18,19.

11. National Safety Council (1993). Accident Facts Chicago. (also 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992).

12. U.S. Department of Transportation (1991). 1991 Traffic Fatality Facts. National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Washington, DC, 7 pp.

13. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1990). Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives, Public Health Service, Washington, DC. p. 16, 103.

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