Highway Safety

Between 1980 and 1992, the annual death toll on America's highways dropped from more than 50,000 to less than 40,000. Over time, the mean risk of frontal crashes, as measured by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), declined, mirroring the trend in annual highway fatalities. Although GAO cannot state with certainty that NHTSA crash tests are a causal factor in improved crashworthiness, GAO believes that efforts by automobile manufacturers to produce vehicles that score well on these tests have improved the overall safety of vehicles. At the very least, test results suggest that the vehicle fleet, on the whole, has become safer during the past 15 years. These trends in the mean score of crash tests, however, do not necessarily mean that individual vehicles have well-defined safety levels, nor do they suggest that the relative rankings of two vehicles would be the same if subsequent trials were done. They also do not suggest that differing test results are reflected in the data derived from real-world traffic collisions.

GAO found that: (1) the probability of sustaining a serious injury has declined since the inception of NHTSA test programs; (2) cars marketed in the United States have become more crashworthy; (3) the consistency of New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) test results is questionable and its unreliable data may lead to misinformed purchasing decisions; (4) NCAP ability to predict a vehicle occupant's protection in real world crashes is limited, since NCAP results can only be applied to frontal collisions; and (5) there is a statistically significant relationship between fatality rates and NCAP-predicted injuries, however, these high fatality rates are associated with the poorest NCAP performers.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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