An Open Access Article

Type: Research Article
Volume: 2022
DOI:
Keywords:
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Article History at IRPJ

Date Received: 2021-12-20
Date Revised:
Date Accepted: 2021-12-26
Date Published: 2022-01-08
Assigned ID:

The Dissimilar Determinants and Outcomes of Road Safety in the United States and the European Union

Denis Robert

  1. Doctoral Student, International Public Health, Euclid University Masters in Public Health, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
  2. Bachelor of Science as Physician Associate, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Email: denis.robert@gmail.com

Corresponding Author:

Pr Devender BHALL, HDR (Editor)

Email: bhalla@mail.euclid.int

ABSTRACT

People might assume that since the United States and the European Union are high-income countries, their road traffic safety policies have similar outcomes. But the facts show a different story. The United States’ road safety record has fallen behind the European Union (EU); specifically, the fatality rate increases while the EU is decreasing.

Philosophically, there are distinct differences between both societies regarding how much influence the government should have on controlling policy variables that can decrease traffic deaths.

Implementation by intergovernmental groups has also been key to decreasing traffic fatalities. Both societies have similar structures at the central federal or EU government level influencing individual states or countries. The approach that EU transportation has in handling this is the crucial difference. While both groups employ penalties or rewards, the main difference is the amount of facilitation. When politics come into play, the United States Congress can pass laws that penalize a state with the loss of highway funds if they don’t comply with a law like motorcycle helmet usage. Politics can just as quickly rescind regulations like motorcycle helmet usage. In the EU system, much emphasis is placed on facilitation and communication before new policies are proposed. Before laws are implemented, organizations distribute funds to conduct research in individual countries on vehicle safety. Collaborations are formed with governmental and NGO groups to discuss possible future road safety policies.

Along with the different philosophical approaches to road safety, the implementation of the EU’s approach to road safety has put it at a considerable advantage over the United States with an intergovernmental policy of facilitation and communication.

 

  1. Introduction

What is road traffic safety? Road traffic safety can be defined as utilizing the focus of law enforcement, individual behavior, public relations, legislative efforts, etc., to prevent fatalities and severe injuries of road users. Road users are considered those behind the wheel of a car, pedestrians, vehicle passengers, cyclists (both motorized and non-motorized), and vehicle passengers.

Traffic fatalities are responsible for more life-years lost than most diseases. According to the World Health Organization, motor vehicle accidents were responsible for 1.35 million fatalities worldwide in 2018, along with 20–50 million being injured. Furthermore, road traffic fatalities are a leading cause of death among all age groups, and the leading cause of death among those ages 5 to 29.  In 2018, 93% of these road traffic fatalities occurred in low – and middle-income countries (LMIC), with only 60% of the world’s vehicles.1

In terms of human loss, medical costs, property loss, and production loss because of road traffic crashes, the total costs of traffic injuries range from 2.2 to 4.6 % in high-income countries (HIC) to 1.8 to 3% in lower- and middle-income countries.2 In addition, road traffic injuries account for 90 % of the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost in developing countries.3

The primary traffic fatality and injured  victims are vulnerable road users of motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians in less motorized countries.4

People might assume that since the United States and the European Union are all part of the High-Income Countries of the world with access to resources and regulatory systems, you would think that countries in both regions would have similar outcomes in traffic safety. Many Americans mistakenly believe that the United States road safety record is the best globally and that the carnage on American roads is unavoidable. The reality is that the United States has fallen far behind the EU countries’ traffic fatality rate. It is much more dangerous on American roads today than it is in Europe. The crash rate in the United States is no longer declining as in other high-income countries, it is increasing.5

 

2.     Philosophical Differences in Approaches to Road Safety

2.1.  Maintaining the Integrity of the Specifications

The United States does not consider injures from traffic fatalities like a genuine public health issue, but it is often conveyed in the media as “accidents” and something that could not be avoided. Despite how senseless a crash can be, people tend to see it as an “accident” and absolving the often careless or the distracted driver with the cell phone or not in control because of drunken behavior.

Those countries that have achieved a much lower rate of traffic fatalities and injuries treat the issue of traffic safety much more of a public health problem than does the United States. They have more social systems in place to support empirical research to decrease road traffic fatalities. Countries with populations smaller than the United States, like Sweden and Australia, have more road safety organizations researching traffic safety than the United States. In the United States, activists like Ralph Nader and Joan Claybrook have been seen to be relied on by Americans more than science to guide public policy.6

Very few people see protecting from traffic collisions as a public health threat but rather a transportation issue, police enforcement issue, or just another way a city can collect money from tickets given to people who violated traffic laws. For example, look at the issue of automatic camera enforcement of drivers going through red lights in the United States. Someone running a red light does so by putting people in the community in harm’s way. However, the whole concept of automatic enforcement in the United States is a volatile and controversial issue. It tends to be rarely used, and some states have outright banned the use of it.

In the 1970s, the United States had the lowest traffic fatality rate globally; by 2019, it had dropped to 13th place globally, with Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland ahead of it.7

In Europe, the idea of ‘rights’ applies to the population as a whole on how it can be protected from harm and not the right of the individual to do what they want whenever they want. So in Europe, people look at rights as being more societal.

In the United States, many interpret “freedom” as having the “right” to do whatever they want until it is too late when it hurts someone else; sometimes, that is not enough to stop them. Somehow, there is a mismatch in people’s ideas of a constitutional right and protecting against senseless traffic deaths.

Some would argue that a countrywide societal approach is not the way to go because of this individualism. Some in the United States are more worried about individualism and are skeptical that the government should have a higher priority of trying to increase the safety of the public as a whole.  On the other hand, when it comes to transportation safety, the public has no problem with accepting the authority of the Federal Aviation Administration in its jurisdiction over aviation safety countrywide. However, on the other hand, road traffic safety has been relegated to something that individual states have been given the power to interpret and enforce on their own in many cases.

 

3.     WHO Recommendations on Road Safety

As a intergovernmental organization, the United Nations is responsible for maintaining peace and security among nations worldwide; it’s World Health Organization (WHO) is accountable for leading public health efforts throughout the world.

The WHO has identified several key aspects of road safety that are problem areas worldwide where improvements need to be made. The organization feels that enacting and enforcing traffic legislation is crucial in preventing and minimizing traffic fatalities and severe injury. This, along with public awareness campaigns on the importance of this and the consequence of non-compliance with this legislation is critical. Despite this, comprehensive laws and enforcement are lacking in many parts of the world, sometimes even in high-income countries. Some of the main issues the WHO addresses are:

3.1.  Speed

There is a direct relationship between the chance of a crash and the collision’s severity with an increase of speed; of course, other factors come into play like road conditions, weather, illumination, driver distraction, etc.  Research on speed management has found that the upper limits of speed management in urban areas should be no higher than 50 km/h. While there is still a high fatality risk, even at this speed (especially for Vulnerable Road users like pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, etc.), there tends to be a good history of safety for countries that have adopted this limit. Of course, they always recommend to local authorities to have the right to modify this.  I have personally found this helpful when driving in Europe. Most EU countries have adopted a variation of this and tend to have uniform laws governing this. I have found it very easy to manage my speed when driving in German towns knowing that the standard urban speed limit is 50 km/h. Understanding this makes it easier to drive and allows people to focus on the critical aspect of road safety and not look for the posted signs since you already know what it is.

In the United States, there is no urban speed limit standard established at the federal or state level.  Consequently, when driving in the United States, you face a medley of sometimes bizarre speed limits for towns that change by the minute. When going from the jurisdiction of one city to the next, the speed limits very often change abruptly and sometimes without notice. The driver must rely on traffic signs along the road, which sometimes are scant or almost non-existent. Consequently, drivers often exceed the speed limits in urban areas because they do not understand or cannot see the speed limit posted because speed limit signs are not readily available. Of course, the other aspect that the communities face in the United States is enforcing the speed limit.  Because almost all communities rely on the traditional police officer by the side of the road with a handheld speed gun to measure the vehicle speed and individually stop a vehicle on the road to give out a paper ticket if it is found to have violated the speed limit. Consequently, the number of people being cited for infringing on the speed limit is minuscule, with the overwhelming majority violating the limit with impunity.

In contrast, in Europe, the use of automatic traffic enforcement of the speed limit has become ubiquitous for over a generation. As a result, a driver takes a chance every time they violate the law because a speed camera can operate 24 hours a day with no limit on the number of cars.

The WHO recommends:

  1. Countries should set speed limits based on individual roads with a maximum of 50 km/h in urban areas.
  2. Local governments should have the right to have lower speed limits when vulnerable road users are at risk.

3.2.  Blood Alcohol Level

Driving while intoxicated increases substantially the risk of vehicle collisions and severe injury and death, with the 0.04 BAC (blood alcohol concentration or percent of alcohol measured in a person’s blood) or higher level of blood alcohol even more so. It has been established that sobriety checkpoints with breath-testing can substantially decrease by 20 % rates of traffic fatalities.

These checkpoints are considered acceptable in Europe to protect society; they are very uncommon in the United States. I have been stopped at several of these in Europe, but I have never seen one in the United States.

The WHO recommends

  1. All countries have drunk driving laws that are strictly enforced.
  2. The blood alcohol limit for drivers should not be 0.05 BAC or above.
  3. In addition, all countries should set limits for younger drivers not be02 BAC or above.

3.3.  Use of Motorcycle Helmets

The wearing of motorcycle helmets can decrease motorcycle fatalities by 40 % and the risk of serious injury by 70 %.  The WHO found that 74 % of participating countries had comprehensive helmet laws, but sadly only 18 states in the United States had universal coverage laws (requiring helmet use for all motorcyclists).

The WHO recommends:

  1. Motorcycle helmets should be required for all drivers of motorized two and three-wheelers.
  2. Laws should be comprehensive enough to cover all motorized two and three-wheel vehicles in that category.
  3. Motorcycle helmets need to comply with either national or international standards.

3.4.  Seat belt use

Wearing seat belts can reduce the risk of death in a car crash by 40 % – 50 % in the front seat and for rear-seat passengers by as much as 25% – 75 %. The countries that have instituted mandatory seat belt laws have found that their use has increased considerably through a combination of public relations and enforcement.  Unfortunately, in the United States, the lack of enforcement of the seat belt law has given many people a lackadaisical attitude toward the law. Most people comply with it, but many consider it no big deal not to bother putting one on. The WHO has found that the enforcement of those laws is weak worldwide, with only 19 % of countries rating their usage effective. That would include the United States.

The WHO recommends:

  1. Local laws should apply to require both and rear occupants of vehicles be required to wear seat belts.
  2. Seat belt law enforcement should be strengthened so that they apply to all occupants of a vehicle.
  3. Public relations campaigns are needed to promote seat belts and warn about the effects of non-compliance.
  4. Seat belt use data systems need to be established so that seat belt usage can be measured.

4.     Policy Differences that contribute to rates of traffic fatalities.

Both the United States and the EU have huge policy differences that contribute to traffic fatalities.

4.1.  Speed control

A national speed limit was imposed in the United States in 1973, mandating that the maximum speed limit would be 55 mph. This was adopted by all 50 states but was rescinded in 1995. Instead, each state can now decide on its limits on maximum speed for vehicles on the road. For example, today, you can go as high as 85 mph on one highway in Texas.

As a result, state and local governments have the authority to enforce speed limits with fines. Usually, this is done by the police who stop cars, and many localities are not allowed by law to have automatic traffic control cameras.

Even though there is ample evidence that automatic speed cameras reduce road fatalities and serious injury crashes by 11 to 44 %, they are still very uncommon in the United States.8

Congress has barred states from using their Federal highway funds for automatic traffic enforcement. It even made it a requirement to use part of their highway funds for a biennial survey that is reportable if they decide to use state funding for automatic traffic enforcement, adding a layer of bureaucracy.9

In the US, there are only 17 states with 153 jurisdictions that have speed or traffic cameras.10

The issue of speed control in Europe is also handled at the local level. One big difference is that in the 1990s, when US traffic fatality rates were similar to most European countries, Europe reduced traffic deaths because automatic traffic cameras increased significantly among many European countries. Today they are ubiquitous, and Europe has a much lower traffic fatality rate. The public pushback has not occurred as in the United States.11

4.2.  Blood Alcohol Level

No EU country allows general driving on the roadway with a 0.05 BAC or higher in the blood; some have a much stricter restriction with as little as 0.02 and even 0.00.12  This is in a society where the drinking age is much younger than in the United States. Generally, the minimum age to buy alcohol in the EU is 18 (with many exceptions based on country, alcohol content, social situation, etc.). This is a 3-year younger age difference from the United States. Despite that, they can still have a society that tolerates a maximum BAC of 0.05 for general drivers on the road. With stricter BAC standards and stricter enforcement on the street, the EU has decreased alcohol-related fatalities by 47% from 2006 to 2016, even though the European Transport Safety Council states that EU populations consume more alcohol than any other region in the world. Despite the improvement, it is estimated that 25 % of road fatalities are alcohol-related in the EU.12

In the United States, every state has a maximum BAC level for the general driver of 0.08. The only exception is the state of Utah, where the BAC is 0.05. This is in a society where the minimum drinking age is 21 years old.

In the US, a third of traffic crashes are attributed to alcohol impairment of BAC of 0.08 or above, contributing to 10,142 people killed in 2019.13

4.3.  Motorcycle Helmets

Motorcycle helmets are mandatory in all EU countries. They even have a universal standard for helmets, ECE 22.05 Standard. It does not get any simpler than that.14

In 2018 – 3,526 motorcyclists died on the road in Europe, which was about 15 % of all traffic fatalities during that year. In 2013, it was estimated that in 31 European countries, there were twenty-three million motorcyclists.15

In 2019, 5,014 motorcyclists died in crashes, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.16 There were 8.3 million motorcyclists in the United States in 2018.17 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that helmets cut the risks of dying on a motorcycle by 37% to 42 %. In addition, non-helmeted wearing motorcyclists are three times more likely to suffer traumatic brain injuries in an accident.18

In the United States, only 18 states have universal helmet laws. Once the federal government eliminated the threat of withholding highway funds for states that did not have helmet laws, states decided to repeal many of the laws in place or just amend them, so only younger drivers needed to use them with the appropriate increase motorcyclists dying on the road. One state without any universal motorcycle helmet requirement in New Hampshire; they have “Live free or die” on all their license plates.

4.4.  Seat Belt Laws

The US NHTSA study estimates that fatality risks by car drivers wearing a seat belt are reduced by 48 %. Fatality rates of car occupants, in general, have a 30 to 50 % lower risk of death if seat belts are used.19

Since 2006, under EU law, all drivers and passengers of vehicles must wear a seatbelt; of course, many countries in the EU made it mandatory before then.20 21

What is unusual is that the requirement is an EU Directive. As a Directive, the member country must comply with the outcome within a specific time, and it is left up to them to how they go about implementing it in their own country.22

In contrast, seat belt laws in the U. S.  are in force by threat of loss of highway funds from the federal government if they do not have mandatory seat belt laws. Most states are allowed to get around this by making it a secondary offense by not allowing the police to ticket someone for non-compliance unless they are stopped for another violation, e.g., exceeding the speed limit, etc. Consequently, 10 % of the US drivers do not wear seat belts because they know they will not be cited. Compliance in New Hampshire is only 70 %, but their state requirement is that only those below age 18 have to wear a seat belt.23

5.     Intergovernmental Policy Instruments to Manage Road Safety.

Under the European Union, regulations are prepared in the European Commission, which consists of a commissioner representing each European State. In addition, the council of the European Union represents the member states, and for issues of transport, the transport ministers discuss road safety issues before the EU. In addition, the High-Level Group on Road Safety is made up of road safety ministers from their home states who discuss and negotiate the issue of road safety and with the formal approval given by the Council of Ministers.

The EU uses a mixture of methods to implement road safety. This is done to eliminate risks that one type of policy alone will fail and that implementing several types could have a cumulative effect to succeed.  The methods used are financial incentives, withholding or giving money, disseminating information, and prodding nations by formulating regulations.

As a rule, EU targets  made to achieve road safety are not binding on individual member countries; the EU primarily uses the following to foster road safety:

  1. Encouraged and fostered road safety organizations-The EU and member states have encouraged and promoted the role of many different organizations in the road safety process. This is in NGOs, research organizations, private companies with vital interests in road safety, and other governmental entities. The input and influence from these different organizations assist in keeping the EU road safety goals on track for both the EU and individual member countries.
  2. Facilitating-Much of what the EU does to foster an environment of road safety is to facilitate. This encompasses getting member countries to conduct an action on their own by financing research projects and disseminating information on different aspects of road safety on websites and other publications. Sometimes they even foster some competition by the setting of benchmarks. It does a lot to get researchers and policy developers to share knowledge to translate into policy in their home countries.24

In the United States, under the Department of Transportation, the National Highway and Safety Administration is responsible for road traffic safety within the country. It develops and implements road safety standards and initiates the recall of unsafe vehicles. It provides grants to local governments for their road safety programs.25

Within the DOT, the NHTSA administers programs of driver behavior while the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) administers programs related to commercial drivers. The NHTSA establishes requirements on the road similar to the EU regarding alcohol use, seat belt law, motorcycle helmet requirements, etc.  While the Federal government has taken the authority to enforce driver safety behavior for inter-state commercial drivers with the FMCSA, it has decided the passenger traffic is under the states’ primary control. It takes a similar approach in enforcement; it uses penalties and incentives.

It uses substantial penalties and “weak penalties” to get states to pass laws to increase road traffic safety.  An example of a significant penalty would be the requirement that states adopt a 0.08 BAC for drivers of vehicles on the road. It was adopted in 2000, and now every state has a maximum of 0.08 BAC requirement that is enforceable by law. By 2004 every state had a law in place because the penalty would have been a loss of highway funds provided by the federal government.

The weak penalties transfer a small portion of a state’s highway funds from other highway safety programs and have been less effective in compliance by the states.

The NHTSA also provides an incentive in grants for states to comply with specific changes in laws or procedures. Unfortunately, the results have been very inconsistent. As of 2018, the number of grants received by states was only 204 grants out of a possible 350 or 58%.

Some other areas where governments have worked together on traffic road safety have been in such areas as The International Transport Forum (ITF). The ITF is responsible for collecting and sorting international data on road crashes. It is the source for global evaluation of road crash data and provides the basis for much policy implementation of countries. The permanent working group of the ITF is the International Road Traffic and Accident Database Group is a significant group that conducts international collaboration on road safety and consists of experts in road safety research, insurance companies, national road administrators, and other road safety stakeholders.26

5.1.  Vision Zero and Intergovernmental Policies

The European Commission has embraced the concept of Vision Zero and implemented it across the EU member states. As it does other aspects of traffic safety, it is doing this by setting goals and looking at where member states need assistance, whether it’s road infrastructure, traffic enforcement, etc. Then, after dialogue is set up with member states, resources as in other aspects of road safety are made available if needed by the member states. This approach has steadily brought road traffic fatalities lower for the past two decades.

In contrast, Vision Zero in the United States would be an excellent example of intergovernmental inaction. There has been  little emphasis at the Federal level to require or assist states in adopting the goals and helping the states to achieve zero traffic fatalities and severe injuries by the year 2050. Only recently have there been a movement to make some federal funds available for “Vision Zero” type goals in local communities.  In  2016, they started their “Road to Zero” program with the National Safety Council (NSC) to provide grants to organizations working on lifesaving programs.27

Even at the state level, there is little support for this endeavor. It has been up to individual cities, usually on the East and West coast of the US (40 cities), to initiate these goals within their towns and to develop their strategy for achieving this.28

In 2020, 140 countries met in Stockholm for a road safety summit to eliminate all traffic fatalities by 2050 and halve them by the next ten years. This Stockholm Declaration was signed by all 140 countries, including the United States. The Declaration was signed by delegates from six continents and was sent for endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly. Unfortunately, the United States attempted to undercut the Declaration by stating that it did not agree with many portions. Furthermore, it claimed it would detract from their “science-based policies” that have “reduced” traffic fatalities.

The reality is that a 2018 study showed that the US has only reduced traffic fatalities by 23% from 2000 to 2011 compared with 20 other High-Income Countries that have achieved a 26 % to 64% reduction in traffic fatalities in that same time frame. The US per-capita road fatality is higher than any other member of the 36 nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Stockholm Declaration is a non-binding agreement, but it is still a set of shared goals and best practices to reduce traffic fatalities worldwide. Heidi Simon, director of the America Walks, states, “We know how to address this epidemic (traffic fatalities). We lack the courage and political will to do so”.29

 

6.     Outcome Differences

In 2020 the European Union had four thousand fewer traffic fatalities than the year before, making it the safest region in the world. The European Commission reported that 18,800 people were killed on the road or a decrease of 17 % from 2019.  From 2010 to 2020, road deaths fell by 36 %, still short of its goal of a 50% drop in the EU. The world traffic fatality average is 180 deaths per million inhabitants while the EU is 42 deaths per million.  Sweden remains the safest of the European countries, with only 18 deaths per million. Seventy percent of traffic deaths were vulnerable road users-motorcycles, pedestrians, and cyclists.30

The United States, in contrast, had 38,680 fatalities on the road in 2020, up from 36,000 fatalities in 2019 with 110 per million killed on the road, and this is with a decrease in overall driving. Traffic fatalities in the US have gone from 32,479 to 38,680 from 2011 to 2020; a steady increase has been attributed to this alcohol use and speeding-related crashes.31

 

7.     Conclusion

The United States has been lagging behind the European Union in traffic safety after its heyday in the 1970s, when it had the lowest traffic fatality rate in the world. Despite having the same resources as the EU, significant philosophical differences contribute to this huge difference. The whole concept of enacting and enforcing laws for the public good, even when lives are at stake, unfortunately, collides with some people’s idea of “freedom.”

A European approach is a societal approach in looking at what is best for society but still protects freedom.

Even when a change in philosophical outlook could have saved lives, the United States pays too little attention to how other countries do things. I have found this from an insular mindset that does not look at or appreciate how different cultural methods could improve things. At worst, when a better solution used in Europe is sometimes brought to people’s attention in the United States, the negative response is “we are not Europeans”.

In my research on traffic safety, of which I specialized in bicycle safety, I found vast differences in attitudes between Europeans and Americans regarding safety.

Because of the high fatality rate on US roads, I looked at what riders of bicycles could wear to give them more visibility to drivers on the road who are more prone to distraction. My theory was that some colors would allow the cyclists to be seen quicker on the road and hopefully prevent some collisions from car drivers.   When asking U. S. cyclists if they would wear a particular color to make them safer on the road if the data supported it, a high percentage of the less experienced riders said they would. In contrast, the more experienced ones said they would continue to wear what they always have and accept the risks.

When discussing my research at cycling conferences in Europe, one of the things that European researchers were opposed to in my research was that they feared if my research gained some acceptability, cyclists could be found to be liable for negligence if a court found they did not wear a “safer” color. In other words, people were more concerned about litigation than the risks of riding a bike on a dangerous road (perhaps because they felt safer).

As I am writing this article, I have just spent two weeks in the Netherlands and Germany, where cyclists’ approach is very different. Both societies did have more bicycle paths that took the cyclists off the road to decrease the possibility of collisions by a car; this helped tremendously. The other big difference was that I hardly saw any cyclists wearing any type of clothing to indicate they wanted to be seen better on the road by cyclists. People in both countries wore regular street clothes with colors not designed to be seen better. The Netherlands had virtually no one visible to me wearing a bicycle helmet, and Germany had more people wearing helmets, but it was by no means universal. I had the feeling that both European societies knew that people were trained in driving a car to expect cyclists to be on the road and were not as defensive as one has to be in the United States.

The American opposition to using Automated Traffic Enforcement is having deadly consequences on US roads. The EU has embraced this concept that has reduced traffic fatalities by 36% over the last ten years. Unfortunately, the US has had an increase in deaths of 19 % in deaths since 2011.

Even though the EU still has 25 % of its road fatalities related to alcohol, the US rate is worse at a third of road fatalities related to alcohol and not much incentive to reduce to allowable BAC rate to EU levels.

Ten percent of American drivers are still not wearing seat belts because it is a law that is not very enforceable in the US and is not taken very seriously. A high compliance rate could save many lives on the road.

Lack of motorcycle helmet use is estimated to have contributed to 1,947 motorcycle fatalities in the US, of which 1,777 were from states with no universal helmet law and only 170 were from states with a universal helmet law.32

Many EU countries have embraced Vision Zero, if not in totality, at least in concept, to achieve no traffic fatalities by 2050. The US has had several American cities adopt this in principle and if they will be able to sustain the momentum is questionable. As long as there is no moral outrage over the increases in senseless traffic fatalities, the US is far from even thinking about achieving these goals.

8.     Conflict of Interest

The author states that there is no conflict of interest.

9.     Acknowledgment

I acknowledge all the support from Euclid University and my supervising professor, Dr. Laurent Cleenewerck in completing this work.

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  • Seat Belt Laws in Europehttps://trip.studentnews.eu/s/4086/77075-Seat-belts-in-Europe.htm, Accessed October 13, 2021.
  • “Type of EU Law” https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-law_en, Accessed October 11, 2021.
  • “When New Seat Belt Laws Drew Fire As a Violation of Personal Freedom” https://www.history.com/news/seat-belt-laws-resistance, Accessed October 14, 2021.
  • Policy Instruments for Managing European Union Safety Targets: Carrots, Sticks, orSermons https://international.fhwa.dot.gov/scan/12024/12024.pd

 

  • National Highway Safety Administration-Fast Facts

https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Highway-Traffic-Safety-Administration, Accessed October 17, 2021.

 

  • International Traffic Safety Data Analysis Group https://www.itf-oecd.org/IRTAD, Accessed October 14, 2021.

 

  • US DOT National Safety Council  Launch Road to Zero Coalition to End Roadway Fatalities.. https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-dot-national-safety-council-launch-road-zero-coalition-end-roadway-fatalities, Accessed October 15, 2021

 

  • Action Vision Zero

https://actionvisionzero.org/resources/vision-zero-a-brief-history/, Accessed October 9, 2021.

 

  • Alissa Walker, “140 Countries Pledge to Eliminate Traffic Deaths. The US did not.” Curbed

https://archive.curbed.com/2020/2/25/21150851/stockholm-declaration-road-safety-vision-zero, Accessed October 13, 2021.

 

  • “Road Safety: 4,000 fewer people lost their lives on EU roads in 2020 as death rate falls to all-time low” April 20, 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_1767, Accessed October 12, 2021.
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  • Motorcycle Helmets Advocates for Safer Roads https://saferoads.org/issues/motorcycle-helmets/#:~:text=Helmets%20Save%20Lives%20%26%20Reduce%20Health%20Care%20Costs&text=There%20were%2010%20times%20as,170%20unhelmeted%20fatalities)%20in%202017, Accessed October 14, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Publisher information: The Intergovernmental Research and Policy Journal (IRPJ) is a unique interdisciplinary peer-reviewed and open access Journal. It operates under the authority of the only global and treaty-based intergovernmental university in the world (EUCLID), with other intergovernmental organizations in mind. Currently, there are more than 17,000 universities globally, but less than 15 are multilateral institutions, EUCLID, as IRPJ’s sponsor, is the only global and multi-disciplinary UN-registered treaty-based institution.

 

IRPJ authors can be assured that their research will be widely visible on account of the trusted Internet visibility of its “.int” domain which virtually guarantees first page results on matching keywords (.int domains are only assigned by IANA to vetted treaty-based organizations and are recognized as trusted authorities by search engines). In addition to its “.int” domain, IRPJ is published under an approved ISSN for intergovernmental organizations (“international publisher”) status (also used by United Nations, World Bank, European Space Agency, etc.).

 

IRPJ offers:

  1. United Nations Treaty reference on your published article (PDF).
  2. “Efficiency” driven and “author-focused” workflow
  3. Operates the very novel author-centric metric of “Journal Efficiency Factor”
  4. Minimal processing fee with the possibility of waiver
  5. Dedicated editors to work with graduate and doctoral students
  6. Continuous publication i.e., publication of articles immediately upon acceptance
  7. The expected time frame from submission to publication is up to 40 calendar days
  8. Broad thematic categories
  9. Every published article will receive a DOI from Crossref and is archived by CLOCKSS.

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