Pennsylvania Gets “Yellow” Rating for Highway Safety Laws

January 2007

The support group, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, gave 31 states, including Pennsylvania, a “yellow” rating for their highway safety laws, meaning the roads need improvement. The group said that 43,443 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2005, the highest total since 44,599 road fatalities in 2004.

The advocacy group is working on getting the following laws passed to help make Pennsylvania highways safer:

• A motorcycle helmet law put in place in Pennsylvania and 29 other states that do not have helmet laws.
• A “primary” seat belt law that would allow police to cite motorists for not wearing a seat belt without needing some other offense to stop them.
• A law that would ban teenage drivers from talking on cell phones and from having other teen passengers in their car for six months after they get their license.
• A law that would increase hours of student driver instruction from 50 hours to 60 hours, including 10 hours at night.

Pennsylvania did get a good review for lowering the drunk-driving blood alcohol limit to .08. The group wants all 50 state legislatures to take the report card into consideration when they reconvene this month.

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