Buckling Down

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is trumpeting the fact that the fatality rate on U.S. highways in 2004 was the lowest since record-keeping began 30 years ago. But as GovExec alumnus Brian Friel pointed out in a recent issue of National Journal, the overall number of deaths on the roads per year has been stuck around the 42,000 level for a decade, leading the administration and Congress to push new safety measures in the massive highway bill. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has set a goal of cutting the annual death toll to around 31,000 in the next three years. With much of the low-hanging fruit in the area of traffic safety already picked--in the form of things like mandatory seat belt laws and tougher drunk-driving penalties--this won't be an easy target to hit.