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How did the USA go from being a pioneer in road safety to having one of the world’s highest road traffic death rates?
Some states are among the deadliest places in the world when it comes to road safety. Why is that?
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Driving has become safer and safer in Norway.
According to Statistics Norway, the number of road traffic deaths has been reduced by 80 per cent since 1970 (link in Norwegian).
That puts Norway among the countries with the fewest deaths relative to its population.
Looking at World Health Organization statistics, Norway has one of the lowest road traffic death rates per 100,000 inhabitants of any country in the world.
In practice, that translates to 1.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, according to 2024 data from the WHO.
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The same list puts the USA in 120th place of all countries, with 14.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (based on 2021 data). Countries ranked just ahead of the United States include Tajikistan and Malaysia.
According to the WHO, the USA has a higher traffic-related mortality rate than almost every European country, as well as Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Djibouti.
You can see the full list in the graph at the bottom of the article.
Just behind the USA is India.
Mississippi is the worst
A look at the USA's own state-by-state figures shows enormous variation. Some states, such as Massachusetts, have 4.9 deaths per 100,000.
South Carolina has 22 deaths per 1000,000, while Mississippi has nearly 25. These figures are based on data from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Measured this way, the United States has a much higher traffic-related mortality rate than other industrialised countries.
Traffic-related deaths have also increased since 2013, according to a study.
There are many possible explanations for why the United States has a much higher fatality rate than many other countries, says Rune Elvik. He is a researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics and has worked extensively on road safety.
"A pioneer"
“The United States was actually a pioneer in traffic safety,” Rune Elvik tells Science Norway.
The country was among the first to build thousands of kilometres of safe highways, which made traffic progressively safer.
He points out that the country established the NHTSA in the 1960s to improve both road standards and vehicle safety.
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“The thinking was that it was better to make cars safer than to make drivers more skilled,” the researcher explains.
Cars became much safer, as requirements for seat belts, airbags, and crumple zones were introduced.
And there was a very big drop in the death rate until around 1990, says Elvik.
“There was a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour from 1974 to 1987,” says Elvik. “That contributed to a sharp decline in fatalities, but eventually there was pressure to remove it.”
Speed limit of 137 kilometres per hour
The federal speed limit was removed, leaving each state free to set its own limits.
Speed limits increased, and drivers can now travel at 65 or 75 miles per hour in many states. On some roads in Texas, the speed limit reaches 85 mph, which is equivalent to 137 kilometres per hour.
The risk of traffic-related deaths increases sharply with higher speeds, according to the WHO, among others.
“There was a power struggle over whether the states or the federal government should have authority over this,” says Elvik.
In many cases, local self-governance prevails in the United States, which can have major consequences for road safety.
Helmets help, but states repealed helmet laws
Motorcycle helmet laws were introduced in many states during the 1970s, Elvik explains.
In the following years, many states repealed those laws.
“It has been shown that the number of motorcyclists killed increases when helmets are no longer required,” says Elvik.
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Alcohol and driving in the USA
"Many tourists are driving in the USA now that they are on holiday. Is there something they need to be especially aware of?"
“They have a higher legal blood alcohol limit than in Europe, and probably more drunk driving,” says Elvik.
The legal limit is usually 0.08 per cent blood alcohol concentration (BAC). In Norway it is 0.02 per cent, which in practice means zero tolerance.
“You can actually go out, spend an evening drinking, and then drive home,” Elvik says about driving in the USA. “There are probably plenty people who do that, and they often have no other way of getting home."
A desire for freedom?
Even though states change regulations or measures associated with higher death rates, this may simply be something Americans accept, according to Elvik.
In a research article from 2022, researchers pointed out that there has been more public debate about safety measures in traffic in the United States than in Europe. Some measures have been viewed as excessively intrusive, such as mandatory seatbelt use.
The researchers also cite studies suggesting this may be connected to American values of individualism.
Greater safety for everyone on the roads also means that individuals have less freedom to do exactly as they please, the researchers point out.
Elvik points out that it's perhaps more important for Americans to preserve individual rights than to do something about the death toll, even though certain states rank among the world's most dangerous places for road users when measured by deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
“They may simply tolerate it. They may think it's the individual's problem and responsibility,” says Elvik.
In Norway, by contrast, there have been persistent attempts to move away from that kind of thinking, the researcher explains. Rather than blaming drivers and their mistakes, road safety is treated more as a societal issue than an individual one.
“An important principle of the Vision Zero strategy is that those who design the transportation system are responsible,” says Elvik.
“A paradise for drivers”
At the same time, there is no escaping the fact that the USA is a country built for driving.
“There really isn't a better place to drive than the USA, you quickly discover that,” says Elvik.
He has driven extensively in the United States.
Elvik points out that Americans drive more than both Norwegians and other Europeans.
“If you look at fatalities per kilometre driven, I don't think the USA ranks that poorly internationally,” he says.
But one development that worries the road safety researcher is that some numbers are now moving in the wrong direction. The number of pedestrian and cyclists killed has risen sharply in recent years, according to The New York Times.
“That may be because more and more people are walking and cycling, which is happening in many countries,” he says.
Elvik points out that the United States is generally poorly designed for vulnerable road users.
He recalls a personal experience in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he parked in a lot across the street from his hotel.
“The road was a four-lane highway where people were driving at 70-80 kilometres per hour. There was no pavement or crosswalk, , so the only way to reach the hotel was to run across the road,” he says.
"And I'm sure that's not the only place in the United States where it's like that," he adds.
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Translated by Nancy Bazilchuk
Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no
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