Road-safety officials at annual meeting discuss ways to reduce deaths

The nation's highway safety leaders held their annual meeting last week in Nashville, where they discussed ways to improve traffic safety as they work toward reducing deaths on U.S. roadways.

More than 500 top state highway safety officials and their associates gathered for the  Governors Highway Safety Association meeting, which had the theme, "Drunk, Drugged & Distracted: Reaching High-Risk Drivers."

The Tennessee Governor's Highway Safety Office hosted the event.

The conference came as many states have reported an increase in traffic fatalities after years of record lows. Breakout sessions during the Nashville meeting addressed how to curb the most dangerous driver behaviors to move these numbers down again, with a focus on alcohol- and drug-impaired drivers and driver distractions.

Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, presented new research during the conference on the real-world safety benefits of a model-speed camera program and offered recommendations on what states need to do to reduce traffic deaths.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Mark Rosekind shared the agency's latest strategies to reduce the instances of risky driver behavior, including impaired and distracted driving, and Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli provided his insights on the growing problem of drugged driving and shed light on the latest research and policy recommendations.