Oct. 5, 2016—The Obama administration is aiming to eliminate traffic deaths in the United States within the next three decades, the Associated Press reports.
On Wednesday, Transportation Department officials laid out a plan that would focus initially on promoting efforts such as increased seat belt use, and campaigns against drunken and distracted driving.
The rapid introduction of self-driving cars and other advanced technologies makes it possible to achieve the zero deaths goal, the department said in a statement. Fully autonomous vehicles hold the potential to eliminate human error, which is a factor in 94 percent of crashes, according to the department. The plan was prompted by a 7.2 percent surge in road deaths last year.
The zero deaths concept was initially adopted in Sweden in 1997, as a plan called Vision Zero.
