A national highway safety advocacy group has released their annual rankings of state highway safety laws, and Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota are once again among the bottom of tier of the list.
All three received a ‘red’ designation, handed out to a total off 11 states that have adopted the fewest of the safety measures recommended by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
Group member and State Farm Insurance Vice President for Federal Affairs Alan Maness encouraged adoption of steps such as primary enforcement of seat belt laws, saying the recommendations are proven life-savers.
“They have been proven to create safer vehicles, safer roads, and road users. And we’ve made a lot of progress through the years with the enactment of these measures and their enforcement. We’ve saved untold numbers of crashes, injuries, and fatalities, but we’re really facing an alarming trend. Over the last 2 years we’ve seen a real up-tick in fatalities,” said Maness
In the their 19th annual Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws, the group says motor vehicle crash deaths jumped nearly 20 percent during the first six months of 2021, the largest increase of any six-month period ever recorded.
The organization says the yearly societal cost of motor vehicle crashes across the country is more than $1 trillion, and in Nebraska, the annual economic impact is more than $1.5 billion.
You can read a copy of the Advocates report here.
