Va. is ranked among the worst states for highway safety

The southbound lanes of Potomac River bridges are carrying drivers into dangerous territory, according to an advocacy group that has rated Virginia as one of the worst states in the nation in highway safety.

The commonwealth was one of nine states that blazed red in a national map presented Monday by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a nonprofit group that uses its own safety goals to rank each state just before legislatures begin to convene for the new year.

This year, Maryland and the District were among the dozen "green" states. Thirty others were rated yellow, and Virginia descended into the red zone.

Many of the group's goals are included every year in its list of 15 priorities: mandatory motorcycle helmets, stricter seat-belt enforcement, open container bans, tougher drunken driving laws. But in the upcoming legislative sessions, it also will push for enforceable bans on text messaging and for graduated licensing for teenage drivers.

"There is no state which has all 15 laws," Jacqueline Gillan, the group's vice president, said at a news conference held to announce the rankings.

Virginia failed to pass muster on 10 standards set by the group, including requiring blood-alcohol testing in fatal accident cases, banning open containers, mandating use of an ignition locking device that keeps people convicted of drunken driving from driving drunk again, and requiring applicants to be 16 before obtaining a learner's permit.

The most common shortcoming in Virginia's traffic laws, the group said, was use of what's called secondary enforcement. That is the requirement that a law can be enforced only if a vehicle has been stopped for some other violation.

"In the case of Virginia, they could raise some of these secondary laws into primary enforcement" and be elevated from the lowest status, said Judith Stone, president of the advocacy group.

The group said that five laws it deemed important had been rendered impotent in Virginia because of secondary enforcement. Three of them were laws intended to restrict teenagers in nighttime driving, cellphone use and carrying passengers. Seat-belt law enforcement is secondary in Virginia, as is the ban on text messaging while driving.

"Secondary enforcement laws are weak," Gillan said. "They are impossible to enforce, and we're sending the wrong message when we adopt them."

The difference that crossing the Potomac makes, in the group's judgment, was reflected in the ratings given the District and Maryland.

The District was given the highest point total in the nation: 13.5 of a possible 15. To achieve perfection, the group said, the District should approve nighttime restrictions on teen drivers, mandatory use of an ignition interlock for all offenders and blood-alcohol testing for drivers who die in accidents, not just those who survive.

Maryland failed to make the grade in five areas, four of them restrictions on teen drivers and the fifth a requirement for use of interlock devices by all offenders.

Virginia shared ignominy in the group's ratings with four states in the old Buffalo Belt (Wyoming, Nebraska, North and South Dakota), two in the Rust Belt (Ohio and Pennsylvania) and a pair at opposite ends of the continent (Vermont and Arizona).

But with no one opposing highway safety, why does such a wide variance exist? Illinois State Sen. John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat and highway safety advocate who came to the District for the news conference, said that "other than the motorcycle helmet opposition, which is very strong, there are no organized forces against" these reforms. However, he said, "there is a perspective in the legislators' minds that their constituents won't like it."

In an effort to use the same persuasion that forced states to adopt a uniform 21-year-old drinking age, a bill introduced in the U.S. House would withhold federal funding from states unless they placed restrictions on teen drivers.

Co-sponsored by Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, the bill would force the District to restrict nighttime driving by teens and force Virginia and Maryland to bump up to 16 the minimum age for a learner's permit and allow primary enforcement of other teen driving provisions.