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NRSS

In This Section

Safer Speeds

The Department believes it is important to prioritize safety and moving individuals at safe speeds. Both exceeding the posted speed limit and driving too fast for conditions are speeding-related crash factors. Speeding increases both the frequency and severity of crashes, yet it is both persistent...

Safer Vehicles

Expand the availability of vehicle systems and features that help to prevent crashes and minimize the impact of crashes on both occupants and non-occupants.

The role of vehicle safety performance in avoiding or mitigating the harm of crashes cannot be overstated. Seat belts and air...

Safer Roads

Roadway design strongly influences how people use roadways. The environment around the roadway system—including land use and the intersections of highways, roads, and streets with other transportation modes such as rail and transit—also shapes the safety risks borne by the traveling public. U.S....

Safer People

Encourage safe, responsible driving and behavior by people who use our roads and create conditions that prioritize their ability to reach their destination unharmed.

The safety of people is U.S. DOT’s core mission. Enabling people to be safer includes actions to encourage safer...

Call to Action: NRSS

The U.S. Department of Transportation has a responsibility to make our roadways safer for everyone; we also recognize that we can’t do it alone. The success of the National Roadway Safety Strategy will require action from everyone. We need you—government at all levels, law enforcement, industry,...

How does safety impact U.S. DOT’s work in other priority areas?

Safety is and will always be the Department’s top priority. Roadway safety is also a foundational prerequisite to our success in addressing two other major priorities: equity and climate.

Equity

The Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities...

What Is a Safe System Approach?

U.S. DOT adopts a Safe System Approach as the guiding paradigm to address roadway safety. The Safe System Approach has been embraced by the transportation community as an effective way to address and mitigate the risks inherent in our enormous and complex transportation system. It works by building...

The Roadway Safety Problem

Over many decades, the United States has experienced reductions in roadway fatalities through successful interventions like the widespread use of seat belts and air bags in motor vehicles, effective State laws such as a 0.08 or lower blood alcohol concentration limit to reduce impaired driving, and...