Federal Agency's Southern Tour Promotes Safe Cars to Save Lives

To raise awareness about motor vehicle safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will be kicking off its Safe Cars Save Lives bus tour this week. The public safety campaign will see NHTSA staffers traveling through four southern states to raise public awareness about different aspects of vehicle safety.

The tour will begin in Miami on the morning of Aug. 9 and move on to Orlando later that day for an afternoon event. The tour will continue through Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana before concluding on Aug. 13, in Fort Worth, Texas.

As a part of the Safe Cars Save Lives campaign, the bus tour is an opportunity for NHTSA to get out and teach drivers about vehicle safety. Specifically, the tour will focus on teaching motorists more about recalls, tire maintenance and safety, child safety seats, and heatstroke.

Tire Maintenance

At the bus tour events, NHTSA experts will explain the importance of tire pressure and wear, as well as how to check for them. This is especially important in the summer, when people are more likely to go on a summer road trip.

Buckled-Up Kids

Child safety seats are another one of the topics that will be covered by NHTSA staffers at the bus tour’s events. In the U.S. hundreds of thousands of children under the age of 12 die each year because they were not properly restrained by a child safety seat or seat belt, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In an effort to decrease the number of deaths and injuries to young children, NHTSA is highlighting the safety benefits of car seats and how to properly install them.

Dangerous Hot Cars

NHTSA is also highlighting the danger of heatstroke when children are left in a hot car. Sadly, this happens far too often and is preventable. NHTSA is attempting to cut down on deaths resulting from this by increasing awareness and teaching bystanders what to do in the event they encounter a child locked in a car on a hot day.

How to Respond to a Recall

The agency originally announced the Safe Cars Save Lives campaign back in January to raise awareness about the number of recalls that occur nationwide each year, encourage consumers to check for open recalls more often, and get them fixed in timely manner when a recall is uncovered. NHTSA encourages drivers to search for twice a year at safercar.gov.

Last year alone there were 900 recalls affecting 51 million vehicles across the country, according to reports. Typically, 25 percent of recalled vehicles do not get repaired, endangering the lives of the driver and those with whom they are sharing the road.

Sometimes, even new vehicles that aren't recalled can be plagued with problems that could put people at risk, in addition to the inconvenience of having to get a vehicle repaired. To learn more about this, read our breakdown of the common issues with new cars.

If you live in one of the four states that the Safe Cars Save Lives bus tour will be visiting, and would like to learn more about vehicle safety, be sure to check out the NHTSA website linked above for a full schedule of times, dates, and locations for the bus tour’s stops.