One of many longest-tenured U.S. highway safety chiefs is again on the auto security discipline, and he is losing little time entering into the sport.

Ricardo Martinez led NHTSA in 1994-99. For many of the previous twenty years, he has held medical government posts in Atlanta and Dallas whereas persevering with to work as an emergency doctor at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

Quickly he’ll be shifting again to Atlanta, the place he’ll return to a full-time school place at Emory College’s Injury Prevention Research Center. He’ll even be working with the varsity’s Crash Damage Analysis and Engineering Community, or CIREN.

It is funded by NHTSA and serves the company by analyzing information from sufferers injured in automobile crashes. That data is then used to information crash exams and form auto security regulation.

“It is a good time for rejoining the dialog,” Martinez, 65, advised me over the telephone final week from Tampa, Fla., whereas on break from one more pursuit. He is the founding father of the Medical Sports Group, which has overseen emergency medical and catastrophe planning on the Tremendous Bowl since 1988.

His opinion column on Web page 14 of this challenge may be seen as an early step in returning to the auto forefront. He argues that the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine can present a street map for bringing autonomous automobiles safely to market.

He additionally identified that Atlanta is now an automotive hub, making it a pure spot for his newest line of labor. Since his NHTSA days, town has turn out to be dwelling to the U.S. headquarters of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz in addition to Cox Automotive and its mobility efforts.

Among the many questions I had for him: With all of the enhancements in auto security expertise, why does the annual U.S. freeway loss of life toll stay caught round 35,000?

There are different metrics to think about, he stated, specifically deaths per 100 million miles. A verify by way of NHTSA’s database does certainly present a distinct image.

The variety of individuals dying yearly has fallen from a peak of 54,589 in 1972. However deaths per 100 million miles traveled have dropped much more sharply, from a excessive of 24 a century in the past to simply 1.1 in 2019,close to a historic low.

Nonetheless, promising tendencies are meaningless if you happen to’ve misplaced a buddy or liked one to a automobile crash. Too many people have. Some 3,700 die each day on the world’s roadways, Martinez says. And because the variety of miles pushed will increase post-pandemic, we’re vulnerable to seeing the fatality depend rise.

Which is without doubt one of the causes driving Martinez again to auto security.

“Dramatic adjustments in expertise now present a chance for growth of autonomous automobiles, and a related freeway infrastructure that, as a system, can radically influence these numbers and supply further societal advantages,” he says.

I additionally requested if he believes the aim of zero deaths — as publicly said by the likes of Volvo and Common Motors — is feasible. He dismissed the query as irrelevant. The dedication is what issues, he says. It forges a covenant with the general public and likewise gives a prism by way of which company selections are made.

“I might not let a worry of failure diminish the depth of that aim.”

And with that thought comes a message to auto bosses all over the place. As he writes on Web page 14: “A dedicated tradition of security, all the best way to the CEO, issues. Personal it.”