A Moment in Time: Highway Safety Breakthrough

Details

• Creators:
  Weingroff, Richard F.
• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  History Vehicle Design Vehicle Factors In Crashes Vehicle Safety
• Series:
  FHWA Highway History Website Articles
• Resource Type:
  Web Document
• Right Statement:
  Public Domain
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Abstract:
  Until the 1960s, efforts to make highways safer had focused on two of the three keys in highway crashes: the road and the driver. The third element was the motor vehicle. For decades, the auto industry had supported efforts to make roads safer and drivers more skilled, while making vehicles bigger, more powerful, and faster. With a product to sell, the industry focused on what helped sales – and safety, in the industry’s view, was a sales dud. The Federal Government was unwilling to tell private companies what to do, but that attitude changed at a moment in time on September 9, 1966.
• Content Notes:
  The original format of this document was an active HTML page(s) located under https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/history.cfm. The Federal Highway Administration converted the HTML page(s) into an Adobe® Acrobat® PDF file to preserve and support reuse of the information it contained. The intellectual content of this PDF is an authentic capture of the original HTML file. Hyperlinks and other functions of the HTML webpage may have been lost, and this version of the content may not fully work with screen reading software.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  Federal Highway Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:30c311f9f39041775f1be4e8fd9db0df8183822555c8462be493ad7803c3c7adf6912b818f1c7ae8dce8a2706352ca62b24e1ab94a2bb5102b73b7efa324a96f
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/74843/dot_74843_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.72 MB ]