No consensus for how to make roads safer in U.S., Colorado

Despite the fact that 43,300 people were killed and 2.5 million others were injured during motor vehicle accidents in the United States during 2006, there has been no concerted effort to bring fatality rates down.

In Colorado, and nationally, efforts to reduce motor vehicle fatalities are concentrated in three areas -- seat belt use, speeding and driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"Crashes that involve alcohol and drugs are usually much more severe than other types of crashes," according to The Colorado State Patrol's Web site. "They usually involve higher speeds, and often both the driver and any passengers are not wearing seat belts."

But an analysis of national statistics from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration shows that 60 percent of fatal accidents during 2006 did not involve alcohol and 45 percent of fatally injured vehicle occupants were restrained.

Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association, an industry-funded nonprofit organization, said that the transportation system is inherently flawed and dangerous because of bad design. Modern cars are intrinsically unsafe because they're too heavy and constructed to fail to protect either their occupants or the occupants of other vehicles during a crash.

Lovins said that one way to improve transportation safety and energy efficiency would be to replace heavy, inefficient vehicles with light, strong vehicles made from composites. Just as professional racers routinely survive crashes at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour, so too would the occupants of composite vehicles be protected by a "carbon fiber safety cell."

But such cars would be significantly more expensive, smaller and less comfortable than today's models. And, as NHTSA statistics show, you're safer on the highways today in an "urban tank."

And, according to Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, lighter vehicles are unlikely to be safer.

"It boils down to physics 101," Rader said. "Size and weight positively affect occupant protection -- and no one has figured out how to repeal the laws of physics."

That might be why there is no national outcry for a concerted effort to reduce fatality rates to a level comparable to the airline industry, said Leon James of the University of Hawaii, who pioneered the field of traffic psychology.

But there is a more important reason.

Americans, James said, love their cars, feel safe, comfortable, and in control of their fate behind the wheel, and think that accidents happen to other people. Since automobile fatalities are evenly dispersed throughout the country and relatively unpublicized compared to other transportation-related casualties, people fail to understand how much they're at risk.

Col. Mark Trostel, who commands the Colorado State Patrol, agrees.

"Too many motorists, especially teens, have the attitude that they are invincible on the road, and a bad car crash will not happen to them," he said.

James said that driving is one of the most complex tasks humans perform on a routine basis.

"We are only able to do so by the 'automatization' of our driving behavior," he said, "by learning how to drive as we learn to ride a bike or ski."

And when we achieve mastery, we enter a relaxed, instinctive and alert state, he said. We drive best when in that state, but when it's altered we put ourselves at risk.

James said that drivers need to examine their driving behavior, including determining the answers to the following questions: Are you prone to road rage, or do you run "race driver" scripts when you're behind the wheel? Do you gab on your cell phone or drive under the influence, or forget your seat belt or occasionally drive faster than the speed limit?

"If so, you should analyze your behavior and change it," he said. "On the roads, as in combat, many will die. It's within your power to reduce your risk -- but you can't reduce it to zero."

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