Making a Difference in Transportation Safety: AASHTO President Addresses Highway Safety at the ITE 2008 Technical Conference and Exhibit

During the opening session of the Institute of Transportation Engineer’s (ITE) Technical Conference and Exhibit, keynote speaker Peter Rahn’s message was clear: the number of fatalities on U.S. roadways can and must be reduced. Each year, over 40,000 people are killed on the nation’s roads, and reducing that number will be part of Rahn’s focus during his term as president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). AASHTO’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan has been designed to substantially reduce vehicle-related fatalities and injuries on the nation’s highways.

As director of the Missouri Department of Transportation, Rahn has unique experience in implementing transportation safety measures that will help AASHTO achieve the goal of cutting the nation’s number of traffic fatalities in half. A few years ago, Missouri was ranked third in the United States for the poor condition of its roads. As a result, the state obtained funds to improve the roads and was able to apply safety improvements that have steadily driven down the number of fatalities on its highways. Rahn explained how simple, inexpensive changes, such as removing raised pavement markers in favor of using rumble stripes and higher grade paints, led to a 24 percent reduction of run-off-the-road crashes. According to Rahn, there may be plenty of expensive solutions to preventing these types of crashes, but the systematic application of simple techniques can be very effective, as can be seen by Missouri’s steady reductions in fatalities in 2006 and 2007.

In order for AASHTO to achieve its goal, fatalities must be reduced by 1,000 each year. Rahn stressed the importance of everyone contributing to that reduction. He has chosen lane departures as one of his three focus areas as AASHTO’s president, an area that previously had no classification, explaining that run-off-the-road and head-on crashes are the number one cause of traffic fatalities. Rahn ended his presentation with the sobering statistic that 50 percent of all traffic fatalities are people under the age of 35, and appealed to the audience to work together to drive down the number of fatalities on the nation’s highways.

Held on March 30–April 2 in Miami, FL, USA, the ITE Technical Conference and Exhibit, titled “Making a Difference in Transportation Safety,” was held in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration. More than 600 attendees enjoyed four days of technical sessions, workshops, roundtables and seminars. The compendium of technical papers can be purchased on CD-ROM at www.ite.org/bookstore.