Service to North Carolina
Research conducted by the UNC Highway Safety Research Center is saving lives on North Carolina roadways and has positioned our state as a model for national road safety programs.
HSRC was a key component of the team which introduced the "Click It or Ticket" seat belt program to North Carolina. Our model developed into a national program which has saved thousands of lives and reduced the severity of innumerable disabling injuries.
Joe Parker, Former Director
NC Governor's Highway Safety Program
North Carolina is fortunate to have a world class research program to help formulate ways to reduce the human and economic costs imposed by traffic crashes. However, they are more fortunate that it is staffed by people who will also lend a hand to help solve local safety problems.
Stan Polanis
Director of Transportation
City of Winston-Salem
The UNC Highway Safety Research Center is an invaluable resource for data and information related to highway safety in NC. Without HSRC, the Buckle Up Kids and Safe Kids NC programs would not be able to substantiate our success in child passenger safety efforts.
Kelly Ransdell
Director, Safe Kids North Carolina
Leveraging State Funding
For each dollar invested by the state over the last two fiscal years, HSRC staff generated more than $11 in research and program funding.
Making NC Roads Safer
HSRC developed the concept of graduated driver licensing (GDL) and helped enact North Carolina's GDL system, which has reduced crashes among 16-year-old drivers by 38 percent, and 20 percent among 17-years olds. HSRC has also helped raise seat belt usage in North Carolina to nearly 90 percent, one of the highest rates in the nation.
Since January 2008, HSRC has conducted projects in 41 counties in the state of North Carolina in addition to 5 statewide projects.
Highlights of the Center's service to the state of North Carolina include:
- Reducing young driver crashes through Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL)
- Increasing seat belt use in North Carolina
- Guiding pedestrian safety policy for North Carolina
- Operating the NC Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Resource Center, funded by the NC Governor's Highway Safety Program
- Conducting observational surveys to measure the extent to which the new NC law prohibiting cell phone use by teenagers while driving affected their behavior
- Examining crashes at work zones to determine the safety impacts of conducting work at night versus during the day
- Studying the effects of high school start time on teenage driver motor vehicle crashes
- Identifying pedestrian and bicycle safety problems and countermeasure recommendations
- Conducting a social norms program designed to decrease cell phone use among teen drivers
