# Understanding House Resolution 545: The Zero Traffic Fatalities Goal

This resolution is essentially the House of Representatives making a formal statement about wanting to eliminate traffic deaths in America by 2050. It's not a law that creates new rules or requirements right now—instead, it's a declaration of intent that expresses what Congress believes should happen and calls on the Department of Transportation to make it a priority. Think of it as Congress saying "this is what we think is important" and asking the transportation department to focus their efforts on making roads safer.

The resolution lays out the serious problem: about 43,000 people died in traffic crashes in 2021, and the bill emphasizes that every single one of these deaths was preventable. The resolution highlights specific dangers like drunk driving (which killed over 13,000 people that year), distracted driving, speeding, and pedestrian deaths—which have jumped dramatically in recent years. It also points out that traffic deaths aren't spread equally across America. People of color and those in low-income neighborhoods face much higher risks of being killed on the road, and rural areas have a disproportionate share of deaths compared to how much driving actually happens there.

What this resolution actually does is call on Congress and the Department of Transportation to commit to several things: improving how they collect data about crashes, using proven safety methods to reduce deaths, addressing the unfair burden of traffic deaths on certain communities, and adopting a "safe systems approach" to transportation. This approach means looking at the entire road environment—not just blaming individual drivers—and making changes to roads, vehicles, and enforcement to prevent crashes from happening in the first place. The resolution also makes a small symbolic change by encouraging all federal agencies to use the word "crash" instead of "accident" when talking about traffic incidents, since "accident" suggests something unavoidable when these deaths are actually preventable.

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives to reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2050.

Schakowsky, Janice D.

 <p>This resolution (1) commits to advancing policies that will end roadway fatalities by 2050, and (2) calls on Congress and the Department of Transportation to commit to working together to achieve zero roadway fatalities by the year 2050.</p>