North Carolina received a “green” rating from a national organization that monitors highway safety – Advocates for Highway Safety! We are very proud of the this report which acknowledges many of the great things we are doing in our state to keep people safe on our highways.
This is the seventh annual report card which grades all 50 states on traffic safety laws. North Carolina is one of 11 states that received the highest rating having 11 out of the 15 model traffic safety laws the group recommends.
The report graded states based on their adoption and maintenance of 15 model laws which were divided into five categories: adult occupant protection, child passenger safety, graduated driver licensing, impaired driving and distracted driving.
According to the report, North Carolina received a “green” rating based on having and maintaining the following:
• Primary enforcement seat belt law that allows law enforcement officers to stop and ticket someone for violating the seat belt law rather than a weaker secondary enforcement law that requires the officer to observe another traffic violation first.
• All‐rider motorcycle helmet law that requires motorcyclists of all ages to wear a helmet.
• Child booster seat law that requires children from age 4 to 7 to be placed in a booster seat.
• Graduated drivers license law elements:
• a six‐month "holding period" that requires beginning teen drivers to be supervised by an adult licensed driver at all times and to be citation‐free before graduating to the provisional or intermediate stage;
• an intermediate stage that prohibits unsupervised nighttime driving from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and allows no more than one non‐family teen passenger without adult supervision; and
• a cell phone and texting restriction that prohibits the use of cellular devices (handheld and hands‐free) by novice teen drivers, except in the case of an emergency.
• Child endangerment law for driving drunk with children in the motor vehicle.
• Open container ban in the passenger area of vehicles, including possession and consumption and allowing for primary enforcement.
• A ban on text messaging for all drivers, except in the case of an emergency.
The additional four traffic laws that the group recommends are: a minimum age of 16 for a learner’s permit, a supervised driving provision, an unrestricted license for teen drivers at age 18, an ignition interlock law for all offenders and mandatory blood alcohol testing for drivers killed.
This recognition is a great accomplishment for North Carolina and indicates that we have taken the right steps toward making our state a safer place to travel for our citizens.