Using Metrics and Systems to Reduce (Permanently) the Number of Auto Accidents in North Carolina and Beyond
Earlier in the week, we surfaced a disturbing phenomenon. Auto accidents in North Carolina and elsewhere lead to more fatalities than almost any other disaster. Yet our politicians tend to focus on other ‘stuff’ — they fail to approach the problem of auto safety and accident prevention with the zealousness that the statistics suggest that we should be using.
So we have a problem: we’re not paying enough attention to this big important policy problem.
In an ideal world, what might be done?
Here are some thoughts:
1. Let’s get better metrics and make the public aware of said metrics.
Yes, the National Highway Traffic & Safety Administration and other government agencies and non-government bodies calculate and report on auto safety stats. But the metrics used — more particularly, the way these metrics get communicated — could use some work!
Our focus is diverse and diffuse, at best. Imagine, instead, if we all focused on one or two ‘big numbers’ to reduce or improve. What if we built all our public policies and research and safety technologies around those numbers? We’d have to pick important numbers – such as total number of fatalities or number of serious injuries total. Perhaps a good statistician could develop better numbers. But we need something to get people to rally around – we don’t need dozens of competing ‘expert voices’ giving us hundreds of different figures. That gives everyone ADHD and prevents the positive focus we need to generate innovation and results.
2. Let’s get all hands on deck.
The people who work at the NHTSA and other transportation agencies on both the federal and state level should play a role, obviously, in determining engineering priorities and public policy. But we should also tap expertise from diverse sources, including auto accident victims, Charlotte car accident law firms, insurance companies, reporters, etc.
3. The approach to improving our auto accident safety should be systematic.
We’re not going to solve our traffic crisis with one big push or one amazingly innovative initiative. We need to be more business-like in how we approach traffic safety. Let’s find out what works. Let’s figure out how we can scale up what works. Let’s use business process management and system improvement and systems thinking. In general, let’s think more ‘corporate’ when it comes to auto accident safety.
