Mixed Messages About Highway Safety in Arizona

According to the seventh annual Report Card on Highway Safety released by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Arizona ranks second to last in the nation for highway safety.
Earlier this year, the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) released its seventh annual Report Card on Highway Safety. After reviewing the highway safety laws for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Advocates ranked Arizona as the second worst in the nation. At nearly the same time, though, the Arizona Department of Public Safety made a more positive announcement: crash statistics from 2006 to 2009 showed a decrease in highway deaths by nearly 50 percent.

For drivers in Arizona, these may seem like mixed messages, but a deeper look at the report’s criteria and Arizona’s laws reads differently.

Ranking in the Red

In the 2010 Report Card, Arizona was assigned to the Red group, which signifies the states that have the fewest and most lenient highway safety laws. Advocates’ asserted that no single state had adopted all of their 15 proposed model laws, but the states ranking as Green had many of the laws and they were generally more strict. The Advocates assessed several categories of laws, including adult occupant protection, child passenger safety, teen graduated driver licensing (GDL), impaired driving and distracted driving.

The Advocate’s sole criterion for generating state rankings was an audit of the state laws; the organization compared the 15 model laws to the laws of each state.

The organization focused particularly on three areas that are becoming more regulated: text messaging and driving, Graduated Drivers’ License (GDL) programs for teens and ignition-interlock requirements for drunk drivers. Arizona does have an ignition interlock law, but is missing 6 of the 7 recommended GDL regulations and does not yet have an all-driver ban on text messaging.

State of Safety

Arizona has some of the highway safety laws and provisions recommended by Advocates, who gave credit for exactly 4.5 of them.

•For drunk drivers, the state requires ignition lock devices, mandates Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) testing where drivers are killed, and increases penalties for child endangerment, a high BAC, open containers, and repeat offenders. Arizona also conducts sobriety checkpoints on a monthly basis.
•Arizona has a GDL program for teen drivers, requiring teens with permits to wait 6-month before receiving their licenses, but the other GDL elements fall short of the model laws.
•Arizona bans cell phones for bus drivers, but not for the general public. The state has no law preventing texting, though some cities have banned texting while driving.
•Riders under 18 are required to wear helmets, , but the all-rider helmet law was repealed decades ago.
•Seat belts are mandatory, but only as a secondary offense — meaning that a police officer cannot stop someone solely for not wearing a seatbelt. Advocates recommends making it a primary offense.
•Arizona does command the use of child restraints in vehicles for children under 5 years old, but is one of only three states without a booster seat law for older children.
Fatalities Not a Factor

The Report Card did not consider lower fatality rates when grading states. If they had, Arizona may have achieved a better ranking. The state has followed the nation-wide downward trend in highway crash deaths over the last few years.

However, the Advocates noted that these rates may have dropped because of the bad economy and reduced traveling, rather than because states passed productive highway safety legislation. The decline in car accident fatalities may also be attributed to better safety technologies in vehicles, higher gas prices and a rise in the use of mass transportation. Police and state troopers may claim a role in reducing crash deaths from increased enforcement of speed limits, drunk driving laws, seat belt restrictions and other safety laws. In reality, many factors may contribute to the decline in fatalities, and many different sources can likely claim some credit for the reduction.

Beyond the Bad Grade

Advocates’ ultimate goal is to produce publications that inform the public of state laws that can prevent injuries and save lives. The Report Card gives a good overview of key issues in highway safety and outlines the ways states can address these issues through law-making. Arizona was one of the worst regulators according to the report, but it is already working to move beyond the bad grade.

New legislation regarding highway safety is currently pending in the Arizona legislature. In January of this year, the Senate approved a child restraint bill that creates a secondary offense for drivers with passengers under 8 years old who are not restrained in booster seats. The bill has been forwarded to the House for a vote. In early February, a draft of a new bill to ban texting while driving was introduced and referred to committee for discussion. With these traffic law updates, as well as others that may appear at a later date, Arizona may climb out of their Red rating next year.