Want to totally eliminate motor vehicle fatalities in North Carolina? Dr. Herb Garrison, head of the East Carolina Injury Prevention Program, knows how…and he has outlined his methods in the latest issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal. The article, written with coauthor Jennifer Smith, is titled: Is Fatality-Free Travel on North Carolina’s Streets and Highways Feasible? It’s Time to Think the Unthinkable.
According to an article published in the News & Observer, there were 1,312 road fatalities last year in North Carolina. Dr. Garrison believes all of those deaths could have been prevented.
“In the emergency room, we see lots of hurt people from car wrecks,” Garrison, 57, told the Road Worrier. “Having fatality-free highways is not an unrealistic goal, but it’s one we need to keep working at every day.”
His provocative 5-point plan for eliminating road deaths is:
- Make 17 the minimum driving age.
- Create special courts for DWE cases to boost conviction rates…and alcohol interlocks mandatory for all DWI offenders.
- Ban hand-held phone use while driving.
- Build more bike lanes and sidewalks.
- Add proven road design elements: more roundabouts at intersections, and make rumble strips standard on road shoulders and center lines.
Dr. Garrison also would like to see stricter enforcement of seatbelt laws and speed limits.
According to the article in the North Carolina Medical Journal:
Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, said recently that “society should treat traffic fatalities as a disease to be eliminated.”
We agree. It will take effort on all our parts, but nothing tremendously burdensome. It comes down to recognizing that the way we’ve always done things may not be the best way. It’s easy to get irritated when asked to put down the cell phone, but there is a greater good: The traffic death you prevent may be a family member or a friend. HensonFuerst applauds Dr. Garrison for publishing his insights, and we hope that North Carolina takes steps to move toward his traffic utopia.
Resources
To read the full medical journal article, click here: Is Fatality-Free Travel on North Carolina’s Streets and Highways Feasible? It’s Time to Think the Unthinkable.
To read the full newspaper article, click here: News & Observer
And please feel free to visit our website for more information about the legal aspects of motor vehicle wrecks: HensonFuerst
