The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) wants the United States to adopt Canadian driving laws and expand its usage of traffic-enforcement cameras — claiming that it would boost roadway safety.
Researchers from the IIHS and Canada’s Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) have joined forces to assess why the U.S. has seen a marked decline in automotive safety since 2011, despite many years of improvement prior to that. The takeaway is that Canada, which has enjoyed statistically safer roads, holds the key and should be copied as soon as possible.
“The U.S. could learn a lot from our northern neighbor,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “Our countries are culturally very similar, so there is reason to believe that many policies that work there could help the U.S. get back on the right track when it comes to road safety.”
From the IIHS:
IIHS recently announced 30×30 — a vision to reduce U.S. road fatalities 30 [percent] by 2030 — and is aiming to rally the safety community around it. The goal flips the more than 30 [percent] rise in road deaths that occurred in the U.S. in recent years. IIHS estimates show that it’s attainable with the right combination of policy changes.
Among 29 high-income countries, the U.S. has the highest per capita crash fatality rate — more than twice the average of the other 28. Many of the other countries have been more ambitious with their safety policies in recent decades, especially when it comes to things like speed and alcohol. That is true of Canada, whose per capita fatality rate is less than half that of the U.S. and which ranks 14th among the 28 countries.
“Many of the countries that managed to improve road safety in recent years have leaned into the Safe System framework, which approaches risks from all angles to create overlapping layers of protection and ensure that no single mistake is fatal,” said IIHS Senior Research Scientist Becca Weast, a co-author of the new paper. “Canada’s policies reflect that approach.”
From 2011 to 2021, the number of fatalities in the U.S. increased 33 [percent], from 32,479 to 43,230. In Canada, from 2011 to 2020, the last year data were available at the time of the study, road fatalities declined 18 [percent], from 2,166 to 1,776. The progress occurred despite the fact that in Canada the population, number of licensed drivers and miles driven all increased at a greater pace than in the U.S. during this time period.
Researchers claimed that the United States was seeing sizable increases in crashes involving cyclists, young drivers, large trucks, and alcohol as Canada was experiencing declines.
The changes the IIHS wants to see implemented included having the U.S. adopt more stringent laws pertaining to seatbelt use and distracted driving — mimicking Canada. That said, researchers still believed fatalities would have increased for the United States over the last 15 years. This, according to the IIHS, necessitates more action to be taken.
They likewise wanted to see lower limits on blood alcohol concentration levels and granting police the ability to force any driver to take a breathalyzer test, regardless of whether or not they’re suspected of being impaired. Refusing to take the test would become a crime in the States, as it already is in Canada.
The rest pertained to the aforementioned traffic cameras and leveraging automated enforcement. Researchers claimed Canada managed to do a lot with speed and safety cameras, arguing the U.S. should follow suit.
“This study demonstrates the real-world potential impact of evidence-based policies in terms of lives saved. Thoughtful implementation combined with stakeholder consultation are critical elements of success,” stated Craig Lyon, director of road safety engineering at the Traffic Injury Research Foundation and the paper’s lead author. “Equally important, public education and transparency with respect to implementation are necessary to combat misinformation and establish widespread support.”
But this doesn’t really tell the whole story. The population density of Canada is estimated to be roughly 4 people per square kilometer. Meanwhile, the United States is closer to 35 people per square kilometer. While the fact that Northern Canada is largely uninhabited undoubtedly plays an important factor, most of the country still boasts a population density comparable to least-inhabited regions of the U.S. Fewer people typically means less traffic and less traffic tends to result in fewer cars bumping into each other.
It likewise needs to be said that illegal immigration is now believed to have spurred on accident rates. Studies have suggested that the influx of bodies into Western nations has resulted in a quantifiable increase in hit-and-run accidents, uninsured crashes and incidents of drunk driving. Here, the U.S. again leads Canada by a wide margin with some even claiming that a meaningful percentage of its immigrants are simply using it as a stepping stone to get into the U.S.
Driving distances are another relevant factor. Despite there being a lot of space between Canada’s urban hubs, most residents tend to live a little closer to where they work. The average commute for Canadians is slightly shorter than their U.S. equivalent.
To its credit, the IIHS did make mention that “population growth” and certain economic conditions do indeed impact crash statistics. It simply wanted to focus on changing driving laws. However, overlooking some of the above items are likely miniscule when compared to how the IIHS routinely ignores how overtly distracting modern vehicle designs happen to be ( even though it has gotten better of late). Despite stressing the dangers of distracted driving in its own article, the IIHS fails again to note that modern vehicles are now rolling iPads.
Touchscreen interfaces are proven to take more attention from drivers hoping to accomplish minor tasks than traditional controls and modern vehicle tech is hardly beloved by motorists. These designs also promote more eye strain than older forms of instrumentation. In fact, the years where we begin to see accident rates spike are the same years that smartphones became commonplace and automobiles started implementing digital displays and internet connectivity. While it may not play an issue in determining why there is a disparity between U.S. and Canadian crash rates, it’s something the IIHS has continued to ignore despite overwhelming evidence that it negatively impacts roadway safety.
The assumed reason for this is that insurance groups, which fund the IIHS like the idea of connected vehicles. It allows them to amass a wealth of customer data (which automakers are only too happy to sell to them) so they can automate their claims system, personalize premiums, and even leverage the data to help deny coverage claims. In short, it’s about the money.
While your author will happily admit that the IIHS has made some excellent points about driving safety inside North America, some of the solutions it’s offering about camera-based enforcement feel like the same reheated Vision Zero noise we’ve heard across Western nations for over a decade now.
Camera-enforcement zones arguably do offer some utility, most notably where there is an abundance of signage warning drivers that they’re being monitored. But the public routinely comes out against these practices, the United Kingdom now having an entire subculture devoted to destroying traffic cams. Meanwhile, arguments have been made that automated traffic enforcement primarily serves as “for-profit policing” and is often sold to municipalities by the companies building them as a way to boost government revenue via increased traffic fines.
That hardly makes all the conclusions made by the IIHS and TIRF worthless. However, it would be nice to see them casting a broader net. The solutions always seem to fixate around ramping up enforcement efforts, rather than designing vehicles to be safer while likewise addressing the root causes for issues of distracted driving or people simply not knowing the rules of the road.
[Image: JHVEPhoto]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.