New NHTSA Nominee Has his Hands Full

Whether he’s confirmed by Congress or not, the nominee to serve as the head of the NHTSA, Steven Cliff, will have his hands full.

Even though there hasn’t been a confirmed head of this organization since President Trump took office, this organization has been led toward ensuring automakers are working to make vehicles safer for our driving experiences on the road. With that in mind, the greatest challenge facing Steven Cliff is likely something you don’t expect to be a problem in the tech-rich world we live in.

More Safety Tech, Less Concentration

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming while you’re behind the wheel of your vehicle? Is your cell phone sounding off, taking your attention away from the road, and putting on this device? Are you working for one of the delivery apps which will send you an order or a trip while you’re actively driving? Any of these situations can lead to you putting your focus somewhere it shouldn’t be. Sometimes we forget that driving on the roads is a dangerous venture and take the safety systems of our vehicles for granted.

Although there is a lot more technology built into our cars and some vehicles have systems that will take evasive action when you don’t, an alarming statistic which shows an incredible increase in vehicular deaths last year. Roadway fatalities are something we seem to be numb to but shouldn’t be. The nominee to be the head of the NHTSA has put this issue at the top of his list and is prepared to focus on what is causing these fatalities to bring the numbers back down to where they should be.

Maybe the Numbers are Skewed

When you hear that US traffic deaths increased by 18.4 percent during the first six months of 2021 compared to the same time in 2020, you might think this is an anomaly because of the pandemic. Fewer people were allowed on the roads in that time of 2020, and that may have led to the lower numbers. With this in mind, a further investigation into these statistics tells us something more.

While the comparison between 2021 and 2020 might not bring the most accurate information, but when you see that the number of roadway deaths for 2021, were the most since 2006, that should raise the alarms for you. This was also the largest six-month increase recorded since the current tracking system was put in place, which was back in 1975.

Cliff has the Necessary Experience

Steven Cliff is a former California Air Resources Board (CARB) official and has been serving as the deputy administrator of the NHTSA since last February. This experience allows us to know he has the necessary resume to take over the top spot and give this issue the serious consideration needed to ensure it’s addressed the appropriate way. One of his goals is to change our culture of accepting roadway deaths as a normal and inevitable part of life. The loss of tens of thousands of lives in a world where cars are safer than ever should be alarming, not an expected occurrence.

New Funding Will Increase the Focus

The new infrastructure bill that is being considered by Congress will increase the budget for this administration by fifty percent. Much of that increase will be put toward improving the understanding of the crash statistics. Where are most of the crashes taking place? How are the crashes happening? Is the quality of the electronic reporting of crashes at the level it needs to be? Can reporting be moved from a paper-based system to digital data collection to streamline the data and improve the reporting time? These are all items that will be part of understanding how the NHTSA needs to increase roadway safety for the future.

A Backlog is Waiting for Cliff

This agency is part of the US Transportation Department, and without a Senate-confirmed administrator since January 2017, there is a serious backlog of pending auto safety regulations that need to be addressed. To bring things to where they need to be, Cliff and his team will need to work closely with other agencies to ensure the backlog is addressed and vehicular safety is increased to the level that it should be at.

Currently, many of the traffic deaths sustained, which certainly contribute to the increased numbers, are attributed to impaired driving, speeding, failure to wear seatbelts, and unsafe behavior. Unsafe behavior is likely the greatest contributor of these four, with more people driving with their cell phones in their hands, texting while driving, and eating while behind the wheel. These unsafe practices might be difficult to address, even though many states already have some laws in place to dissuade such activities.

Cliff is Committed; Are You

While Steven Cliff and his NHTSA team (his once he is confirmed) work to make the roads safer and study where and why most of the driving-related deaths have occurred, there are things we can do to help ensure we stay safer when out on the road. The most obvious would be to ensure we don’t drive impaired, don’t speed, and wear our seatbelts. The most difficult might be to put the phone down, avoid eating and drinking while driving, and stay completely focused on the task at hand.

Don’t become one of the statistics that we have become numb to; avoid driving distracted while you stay safe during your time behind the wheel.