WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), a Chief Deputy Whip, released the following statement on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) new report finding that in 2019 motor vehicle crashes in the United States killed an estimated 36,500 people, injured 4.5 million people, damaged 23 million vehicles, and cost Americans $340 billion, or 1.6% of our nation’s gross domestic product:“NHTSA’s crash data confirms what countless grieving families and shattered communities across the country have already come to know: vehicle crashes are incredibly costly, most importantly in lives lost,” said Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. “NHTSA must act promptly to protect American families and reduce the cost of vehicle crashes. Now is time to implement the historic, lifesaving vehicle safety provisions in President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”

Car crash; image by La Cara Salma, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Since 2019, the nation’s roads are getting more dangerous with crash fatalities increasing 17% to almost 43,000 deaths in 2021.As the Chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over automobile safety, in the 117th Congress, Schakowsky championed several key automobile safety provisions in the Infrastructure Law that will help address this crisis, including:

• Requirements that manufacturers equip vehicles with crash avoidance technologies, like collision warnings and automatic emergency braking, that stop crashes from happening;

• Mandates for drunk driving prevention technologies to be equipped on new vehicles to prevent impaired crashes, which caused approximately 12,000 deaths in 2019 and cost $57 billion;

• Promoting distracted driver monitoring technologies to prevent drowsy and distracted driving, which led to more than 10,500 deaths in 2019 and cost $98.2 billion; and

• Updating the “Five Stars for Safe Cars” program to rate driver assistance technologies that can prevent crashes and educate consumers.