Officials Look Towards Public Transportation to Reduce Auto Accidents

Each year, thousands of people in the United States lost their lives in automobile accidents. While automakers have been pushing for new safety systems, such as driver assist and collision warning, it's made little impact on accident rates. So in an effort to curb these numbers, government officials are looking to expand public transportation across the country.

According to a recent study conducted by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the chance of being an accident drops by roughly 90% when taking public transportation such as a bus or train instead of driving. Of course, this should come as little-to-no surprise given that public transportation is inherently safer by design. The problem, however, is that most people continue to drive their own automobiles, clogging up city streets while placing them at greater risk of being in an accident.

So long story short, taking public transportation to and from your job is 10 times safer than driving your own vehicle, according to the APTA's study.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) recently released statistics involving auto-related fatalities, in which it found that more than 35,000 people lost their lives on the the road in 2015. To put that number into perspective, it's a 7.2% increase from the year prior. Over the past few years, traffic-related fatalities have been on the decline. But 2015 marked a disturbing trend in which these numbers shifted in the opposite direction, with more traffic-related fatalities. 

Government officials are hoping that increased usage of public transportation will save lives and reduce these numbers. As explained by Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, it would "keep high-risk drivers" off the roads.

"35,092. That is the number of people who died on our nation’s highways in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2015,” the NHTSA said in a press release. “Your neighbor driving to work. Your niece walking to the park. Your brother biking home.”

Of course, there are other steps that commuters can take to stay safe on the roads, one of which is to avoid driving while fatigued. Other studies have shown that fatigued drivers have roughly same level of impairment as those under the influence of alcohol. Fatigue slows reaction times, which in turn increases the risk of an accident. This is particularly true for commercial truck drivers, many of whom push themselves to meet deadlines and clock hours.