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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released its first quarter projections for traffic fatalities in 2023, which estimate that 9,330 people died in traffic crashes during the first three months of the year. This is a decrease of about 3.3% when compared to estimated fatalities during the same timeframe in 2022. Florida showed a decrease in fatalities of 3.7%; 989 fatalities in the first quarter of 2022 versus 952 in the first quarter of 2023. While the downward trend is moving in the right direction, even one fatality is still one too many.
Last January, Secretary Buttigieg unveiled the Department’s National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) to address the national crisis in traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The NRSS adopts the safe system approach and builds multiple layers of protection with safer roads, safer people, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and better post-crash care.
Earlier this year, the TPO was awarded a US DOT Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant to develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP), to identify implementable strategies aimed at eliminating fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways in Volusia and Flagler Counties. While we continue to make our roads safer through education, project prioritization and programming, development of the CSAP takes further action by working collectively with our member governments, agency partners, community stakeholders, and the public to develop an inclusive safe system approach to roadway safety. The TPO recognizes that the current methods of addressing roadway safety are insufficient and systemic changes are needed to influence change; the CSAP is the catalyst for that change. Work is expected to begin on this plan in the coming months. More information is available at SS4A Grant.
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