After considerable improvements in traffic safety resulting from increased use of safety belts and a reduction in drink driving, further improvements in accident statistics were not occurring. An examination of this situation showed that traffic safety was not considered high priority by most Americans and that resources were being channelled elsewhere. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) set about creating changed attitudes within its own organisation, followed by other relevant organisations. The most effective approach is to empower local citizens or groups to identify their own safety problems and then provide them with the programmes to devise their own solutions. A research alliance between medical emergency centres and engineers in the car industry is described. Other approaches include increasing compliance with safety belt use, establishing new national goals to reduce drink driving fatalities, and traffic safety enforcement by police. The benefits of these approaches included improved accident statistics and an increased willingness to fund traffic safety.
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