Buttigieg vows help as US car fatalities keep spiking higher

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is vowing to help stem rising traffic fatalities, releasing a broad-based strategy aimed at reducing speed, redesigning roads and boosting car safety features such as automatic emergency braking.

Buttigieg told The Associated Press that new federal data being released next week will show another increase in traffic fatalities through the third quarter of 2021. While still being finalized, the third-quarter numbers were expected to point to another sizable increase in deaths compared with the same period in 2020, adding to a half-year traffic death total of 20,160 that already was the highest half-year figure since 2006.

“It doesn’t look good, and I continue to be extremely concerned about the trend,” Buttigieg said in a phone interview ahead of the strategy's release on Thursday.

“Somehow it has become over the years and decades as normal, sort of the cost of doing business," he said. “Even through a pandemic that led to considerably less driving, we continue to see more danger on our roads."

To prioritize safety, Buttigieg said his department is embracing a new “safe system” approach urged by auto safety advocates to bolster initiatives already underway in several cities that seek to eliminate fatalities by taking into account the whole system rather than just driver behavior.

Over the next two years, he said, his department will provide guidance as well as $5 billion in grants to states to spur lower speed limits and embrace safer road design such as dedicated bike and bus lanes, better lighting and crosswalks. When roads become safer for bicyclists and pedestrians, it opens up transit options overall and can lead to fewer dangerous cars on the road, he said.

The Safe Streets and Roads for All grants, the...