WASHINGTON- Following the announcement of 10 consecutive quarters of declining roadway fatalities across America, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced today its 2025 National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) Progress Report (LINK), along with an additional 15 new commitments from businesses and organizations to support the NRSS and take action to reverse the crisis on America’s roads.
The report provides an update on the Department’s efforts to address serious and fatal injuries on our roadways, details the Department’s accomplishments related to addressing the NRSS actions in 2024. The actions highlighted in this report include:
- Awarded an additional $1.2 billion in funding to improve roadway safety at the local, regional, and Tribal levels through the Safe Streets and Roads for All discretionary grant program. In the life of the program to date, more than 1,600 communities received $2.9 billion in funding, representing 75 percent of the nation’s population.
- Advanced roadway safety by standardizing light vehicle automatic emergency braking (AEB)-including pedestrian AEB. It is projected that this new standard will save at least 360 lives a year and prevent at least 24,000 injuries annually.
- Integrated the Safe System Approach into the Highway Safety Improvement Program and published a notice of proposed rulemaking to update the National Safety Performance Measures.
- Launched a national distracted driving campaign in April 2024 and convened stakeholders for a Distraction Action Forum in August 2024 to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving and gather input to a research roadmap to address new distracted driving challenges.
- Released the USDOT Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Deployment Plan in August 2024 to guide the implementation of V2X technologies across the nation and support the Department’s commitment to a comprehensive approach for reducing the number of roadway fatalities to zero.
- Enhanced work zone safety through issuing key updates to regulations on safety and mobility performance, data-driven programmatic reviews, and the use of positive protection, as well as disseminating an informational guide and desktop reference on the use of proven safety measures in work zones.
- USDOT continued its NRSS Call to Action campaign, initially launched in February 2023 which invites stakeholders to commit to taking specific, tangible steps to actively reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on America’s roads and streets, expand the adoption of a Safe System Approach and vision for zero fatalities across the nation, and transform how we as a nation think about safety. The Department welcomed 123 NRSS Allies in Action (NRSS Allies) in 2023. Throughout 2024, the Department announced 73 new NRSS Allies with commitments to reach a total of 196.
All NRSS Allies have committed to taking specific, tangible steps to actively reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on America’s roads and streets, expand the adoption of a Safe System Approach and vision for zero fatalities vision across the nation, and transform how we as a nation think about road safety. Allies in Action span multiple sectors and include health and safety advocates, nonprofit organizations, the private sector, state and regional entities, and more.
Some of the new voluntary commitments from “NRSS Allies” include:
- International Academies of Emergency Dispatch (IAED) is the standard-setting and accrediting body for public safety emergency dispatch worldwide. In 2024-2025, IAED is working with the National 911 Program to evaluate data from specific crash-related protocols and share this data with USDOT to inform analysis and policy. They will conduct a study of 911 center data to identify the actual percentage of 911 calls related to the nation’s roads and the areas related to the Safe Systems Approach.
- Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) has launched the Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project, an effort to increase multimodal safety and address reckless driving across all 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County. Milwaukee County is working collaboratively with municipal leaders and community stakeholders across the County to develop a comprehensive, data-driven, countywide Comprehensive Safety Action Plan. Additionally, all 19 of Milwaukee County’s municipalities are at various stages of developing their own Comprehensive Safety Action Plans in conjunction with Milwaukee County’s Action Plan.
- Verizon is reaffirming its commitment to connected technology that can help keep roadways safer. Verizon supports the deployment of Cellular-Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technologies, using 5G and mobile edge computing to facilitate the transmission of time-sensitive safety information between vehicles on our roadways and expedite timely traffic information to drivers. Verizon also supports safe driving through Verizon Connect’s Intelligent AI Dashcam. Verizon Connect’s advanced commercial GPS fleet-tracking solution, in tandem with its Intelligent AI Dashcam, helps protect drivers in real time, reduce incidents and unsafe driving events-such as distracted driving, tailgating, or drowsiness-and allows fleet managers to review and provide feedback and safe driving instruction.
See the full list of NRSS Allies in Action and watch a message from U.S. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg here.