DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s road safety agency wants the auto industry to design new vehicles including increasingly large SUVs and pickup trucks so they reduce pedestrian deaths and injuries.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Monday that for the first time it’s proposing a new rule setting testing and performance requirements to minimize the risk of pedestrian head injuries.

The rule would cover all passenger vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less, but it’s is aimed largely at big SUVs and pickups, which have grown in size and hood height over the years, causing blind spots for drivers.

NHTSA said pedestrian deaths increased 57% from 2013 to 2022, from 4,779 to 7,522. The agency says the rule would save 67 lives per year.

Data show that nearly half of all pedestrian deaths when hit by the front of a vehicle are most common for SUVs and trucks.

The proposed rule, required by Congress in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, would set test procedures to simulate head-to-hood impact as well as requirements to reduce the risk of head injuries. Human-like head dummies that simulate children and adults would be used in testing, NHTSA said in a prepared statement.

“We have a crisis of roadway deaths, and it’s even worse among vulnerable road users like pedestrians,” NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said in the statement. “This proposed rule will ensure that vehicles will be designed to protect those inside and outside from serious injury or death.”

Messages were left Monday seeking comment from automakers and the industry’s main trade association.

The infrastructure law required NHTSA to make U.S. regulations match a global pedestrian safety rule, with a regulation that would focus on vehicles made uniquely for the U.S. market.

Through August, SUVs and trucks of all sizes accounted for almost 79% of new vehicles sales in the U.S., according to Motorintelligence.com.

Last year, an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study found that vehicles with higher, more vertical front ends raise risks for pedestrians. The research arm of the insurance industry found that pickups, SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45% more likely to cause deaths in pedestrian crashes than cars and other vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less and a sloping profile.

The authors also questioned whether wider pillars holding up roofs of the larger vehicles make it harder for drivers to spot people walking near the corners of vehicles.

Consumer Reports found in 2021 that elevated vehicle hoods also obstructed driver views of pedestrians crossing before them.

The magazine and website found that pickup truck hood heights have risen 11% since 2000. The hood of a 2017 Ford F-250 heavy-duty pickup was 55 inches off the ground, as tall as the roofs of some cars.

Consumer Reports said it measured visibility for 15 new vehicles, including full-size trucks. Due to height and long hoods, it found that front blind spots in some trucks were 11 feet longer than some sedans and 7 feet longer than many popular SUVs.

Automakers and the public can comment on the proposal for 60 days, after which NHTSA will draw up a final regulation.

Chesapeake, Suffolk, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton have installed speed cameras in local school and work zones to deter speeding and enhance overall public safety.

Though law enforcement leaders tout the equipment as a safety measure to deter speeding, the cameras can also be significant moneymakers — with Chesapeake and Suffolk already raking in millions.

Chesapeake has a dozen cameras that have been active since 2022. The city reports a total of 158,075 violations since then, along with about $9.7 million in revenue.

Another 10 cameras in Suffolk went active in fall 2023 along with one at a work zone. Since then, the city reports roughly 196,000 citations, collecting $14.2 million in revenue. After paying the vendor, net revenue is $10.5 million. Suffolk did not specify whether the citation and revenue figures provided to The Virginian-Pilot were specific to school and work zone speed cameras only. The city also operates red light and school bus cameras.

Both cities previously said net revenue would go toward highway safety improvements and personnel costs.

The school zone speed cameras in Chesapeake and Suffolk are targeted in two lawsuits brought by former Del. Tim Anderson, an attorney who alleges the cities are improperly issuing speeding violations and allowing third party vendors to impersonate local government when collecting fees.

Anderson’s case in Suffolk is awaiting an order from a judge on whether it will move forward. A hearing in the Chesapeake case is scheduled for Sept. 18.

The Virginia General Assembly approved legislation in 2020 that allows state and local police to set up speed cameras at highway work sites and school crossing zones. Under that law, only motorists caught going at least 10 mph over the speed limit are ticketed up to $100.

Hampton is in the process of rolling out a dozen cameras in school zones this fall as part of a pilot program with staggered warning periods.

A 30-day warning period began Aug. 26 for cameras located near Bethel High School, Hampton High School and Hunter B. Andrews Pre-K. A 30-day grace period will begin for cameras at Jones Magnet Middle School, Kecoughtan High School, Lindsay Middle School and Machen Elementary School by Sept. 30. And cameras at another set of schools — Mary W. Jackson Elementary School, Thomas Eaton Middle School, Aberdeen Elementary School, Barron Elementary School and William Mason Cooper Elementary — will have a 30-day grace period beginning no later than Oct. 15.

Hampton city officials said about $3.5 million would be budgeted for the school zone speed camera pilot program.

Norfolk has 19 cameras in place across 10 public school locations. A 60-day warning period was slated to end in May, but a city spokesperson said last week that the cameras are still in an active warning period “until summons language can be resolved with the general district court and our vendor, Verra Mobility.”

Part of Anderson’s complaint in his lawsuits was that officers weren’t issuing an official Virginia summons document consistent with other traffic infractions when making the speeding citations.

Portsmouth has 16 cameras, and police began fining drivers in December. The city reports 28,289 citations and $951,061 of revenue collected between January and June. Of the total revenue, $565,042 will be paid to the third-party vendor.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the latest citations and revenue figures from the city of Portsmouth. The city provided the figures after the article published.

Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com

In Norfolk, the most significant delays will be along Interstate 64. The on-ramp to I-64 east from Northampton Boulevard will be closed from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. from Sept. 8-12. Additionally, the off-ramp from I-64 east to Tidewater Drive south, Exit 277A, will be fully closed from as early as 10 p.m. to as late as 7 a.m. from Sept. 9-13, according to VDOT.

On Interstate 264 in Norfolk, the on and off ramps to and from Ballentine Boulevard (Exit 12) and Campostella Road (Exit 11) will be closed from as early as 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Sept. 8-14.

Interstate 664 in Chesapeake will see the full closure of the off-ramp to Pughsville Road (Exit 10) from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. from Sept. 8-12. On I-664 in Hampton and Newport News, there will be a full closure of the on and off ramps to and from Power Plant Parkway/Powhatan Parkway (Exit 2), Aberdeen Road (Exit 3), Chestnut Avenue/Roanoke Avenue (Exit 4), and 35th Street (Exit 5) from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. Sept. 8-11.

For the region’s bridges and tunnels, the most disruptions this week will be along the James River Bridge, where there will be alternating single-lane closures from 9 a.m. to as late as 3 p.m. in both directions on Sept. 9 and 11, in the southbound lanes on Sept. 10 and 12, and in the northbound lanes on Sept. 13.

The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel will also have a single-lane closure in the westbound lanes from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. from Sept. 9-10.

For the full breakdown of stoppages across Hampton Roads, visit  511Virginia.org.

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com

Transportation officials have spent the past few years refining a system in which radio transmitters inside commuter buses talk directly to the traffic signals in the Salt Lake City area, requesting a few extra seconds of green when they approach.

Congestion on these so-called smart streets is already noticeably smoother, but it’s just a small preview of the high-tech upgrades that could be coming soon to roads across Utah and ultimately across the U.S.

Buoyed by a $20 million federal grant and an ambitious calling to “Connect the West,” the goal is to ensure every vehicle in Utah, as well as neighboring Colorado and Wyoming, can eventually communicate with one another and the roadside infrastructure about congestion, accidents, road hazards and weather conditions.

With that knowledge, drivers can instantly know they should take another route, bypassing the need for a human to manually send an alert to an electronic street sign or the mapping apps found on cellphones.

“A vehicle can tell us a lot about what’s going on in the roadway,” said Blaine Leonard, a transportation technology engineer at the Utah Department of Transportation. “Maybe it braked really hard, or the windshield wipers are on, or the wheels are slipping. The car anonymously broadcasts to us that blip of data 10 times a second, giving us a constant stream of information.”

When cars transmit information in real time to other cars and the various sensors posted along and above the road, the technology is known broadly as vehicle-to-everything, or V2X. Last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation unveiled a national blueprint for how state and local governments and private companies should deploy the various V2X projects already in the works to make sure everyone is on the same page.

The overarching objective is universal: dramatically curb roadway deaths and serious injuries, which have recently spiked to historic levels.

A 2016 analysis by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded V2X could help. Implementing just two of the earliest vehicle-to-everything applications nationwide would prevent 439,000 to 615,000 crashes and save 987 to 1,366 lives, its research found.

Dan Langenkamp has been lobbying for road safety improvements since his wife Sarah Langenkamp, a U.S. diplomat, was killed by a truck while biking in Maryland in 2022. Joining officials at the news conference announcing the vehicle-to-everything blueprint, Langenkamp urged governments across the U.S. to roll out the technology as widely and quickly as possible.

“How can we as government officials, as manufacturers, and just as Americans not push this technology forward as fast as we possibly can, knowing that we have the power to rescue ourselves from this disaster, this crisis on our roads,” he said.

Most of the public resistance has been about privacy. Although the V2X rollout plan commits to safeguarding personal information, some privacy advocates remain skeptical.

Critics say that while the system may not track specific vehicles, it can compile enough identifying characteristics — even something as seemingly innocuous as tire pressure levels — that it wouldn’t take too much work to figure out who is behind the wheel and where they are going.

“Once you get enough unique information, you can reasonably say the car that drives down this street at this time that has this particular weight class probably belongs to the mayor,” said Cliff Braun, associate director of technology, policy and research for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital privacy.

The federal blueprint says the nation’s top 75 metropolitan areas should aspire to have at least 25% of their signalized intersections equipped with the technology by 2028, along with higher milestones in subsequent years. With its fast start, the Salt Lake City area already has surpassed 20%.

Of course, upgrading the signals is the relatively easy part. The most important data comes from the cars themselves. While most new ones have connected features, they don’t all work the same way.

Before embarking on the “Connect the West” plan, Utah officials tested what they call the nation’s first radio-based, connected vehicle technology, using only the data supplied by fleet vehicles such as buses and snow plows. One early pilot program upgraded the bus route on a busy stretch of Redwood Road, and it isn’t just the bus riders who have noticed a difference.

“Whatever they’re doing is working,” said Jenny Duenas, assistant director of nearby Panda Child Care, where 80 children between 6 weeks and 12 years old are enrolled. “We haven’t seen traffic for a while. We have to transport our kiddos out of here, so when it’s a lot freer, it’s a lot easier to get out of the daycare.”

Casey Brock, bus communications supervisor for the Utah Transit Authority, said most of the changes might not be noticeable to drivers. However, even shaving a few seconds off a bus route can dramatically reduce congestion while improving safety, he said.

“From a commuter standpoint it may be, ‘Oh, I had a good traffic day,’” Brock said. “They don’t have to know all the mechanisms going on behind the scenes.”

This summer, Michigan opened a 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) stretch of a connected and automated vehicle corridor planned for Interstate 94 between Ann Arbor and Detroit. The pilot project features digital infrastructure, including sensors and cameras installed on posts along the highway, that will help drivers prepare for traffic slowdowns by sending notifications about such things as debris and stalled vehicles.

Similar technology is being employed for a smart freight corridor around Austin, Texas, that aims to inform truck drivers of road conditions and eventually cater to self-driving trucks.

Darran Anderson, director of strategy and innovation at the Texas Department of Transportation, said officials hope the technology not only boosts the state’s massive freight industry but also helps reverse a troubling trend that has spanned more than two decades. The last day without a road fatality in Texas was Nov. 7, 2000.

Cavnue, a Washington, D.C.-based subsidiary of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Infrastructure partners, funded the Michigan project and was awarded a contract to develop the one in Texas. The company has set a goal of becoming an industry leader in smart roads technology.

Chris Armstrong, Cavnue’s vice president of product, calls V2X “a digital seatbelt for the car” but says it only works if cars and roadside infrastructure can communicate seamlessly with one another.

“Instead of speaking 50 different languages, overnight we’d like to all speak the same language,” he said.

The tractor-trailer was traveling west at about 9:36 a.m. when the raised bed collided with the sign for Exit 200. Virginia State Police said the collision caused the bed to separate from the cab and get stuck, propped up in the air at nearly a 90-degree angle, based on pictures of the incident.

The driver, 62-year-old Richard D. Houston of Lorton, wasn’t injured in the wreck. Houston is charged with reckless driving.

Emergency crews were able to remove the truck bed from leaning against the sign by about 11 a.m.

A state police spokesperson declined to comment on how this happened, saying the crash is under investigation.

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com

Sgt. Michelle Anaya, spokesperson for the Virginia State Police, said 22-year-old Trinity Iris Downs, of Hampton, was driving inside the tube at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Anaya said Downs “lost control of the vehicle” and struck the jersey wall.

She was sent to Norfolk Sentara Hospital with life-threatening injuries. No other vehicles were involved, and charges are pending in the case. It is unclear if speed was a factor.

By 8:30 a.m., eastbound lanes were reopened. Westbound lanes were opened shortly after 11 a.m.

Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com

The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority announced that the agreement would extend a passenger rail into the New River Valley, allowing state officials to run passenger trains between Roanoke and Christiansburg on the private rail company’s main rail line, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

With access to the line, state officials said, they could add passenger services to Norfolk Southern’s Cambria Yard station in Christiansburg, which served as a passenger terminal from 1904 to 1979.

Officials with the state authority said they also purchased Norfolk Southern-owned rails in Northern Virginia, which could bolster efforts to increase commuter rail stops between Prince William County and Washington, D.C. Officials said they plan to add train service during the evenings and over weekends.

“We are excited to deliver these benefits as we continue to accelerate results not only in these two regions, but across the entire Commonwealth,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a statement.

In a news release, Rail Authority Executive Director DJ Stadtler thanked Norfolk Southern for partnering with the state. “We look forward to finalizing this agreement, which will make passenger rail a viable option for even more Virginians,” Stadtler said.

Suffolk Circuit Court Judge Alfred Bates III heard a case Tuesday brought by former Del. Tim Anderson against the city of Suffolk. In April, Anderson filed a lawsuit in the circuit courts of Chesapeake and Suffolk alleging the cities are improperly issuing speeding violations and allowing third party vendors to impersonate local government when collecting fees. State code says that “any prosecution shall be instituted and conducted in the same manner as prosecution for traffic infractions.”

The crux of the dispute at Tuesday’s hearing was whether the city is entitled to sovereign immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government entities from some legal action. Suffolk Assistant City Attorney Rebecca Powers also disputed, through examples of case law, the interpretation of the word “shall” in state code, noting that the term doesn’t mean it’s mandatory to follow the law precisely as written. The city also argues, through a demurrer, that the plaintiff’s claims are false and the case should be tossed out.

After the hearing, Powers declined to comment. A city spokesperson also declined to comment.

Anderson has said state code for school and work zone cameras in particular is specific about issuing citations with the same official uniform Virginia summons issued for other traffic infractions. It also allows cities to contract with third-party private companies to provide the services. But Anderson’s argument Tuesday was that while cities have the right to use the equipment and issue fines, they can’t do it through a private third-party. And that by doing so, the city waived its sovereign immunity.

“(When) courts have wrestled with this before, there’s really never been a situation where the government has said, ‘You owe us money,’ and then the citizen says, ‘I don’t think you’re doing it legally,'” Anderson said after Tuesday’s hearing. “So I think it’s a case of real first impression for the court to wrestle with.”

The General Assembly approved legislation in 2020 allowing state and local police to set up speed cameras at highway work sites and school crossing zones. Under that law, only motorists caught going at least 10 mph over the speed limit are ticketed.

Several Hampton Roads cities have installed speed cameras since in an effort to deter speeding and enhance public safety. A dozen cameras went live in Chesapeake in 2022. Suffolk has cameras at 10 schools and one work zone — launched last year.

As of April, Chesapeake police issued 150,788 citations and collected $9.35 million in fines, according to information provided by the city. Suffolk issued 167,883 as of March and had collected $11.72 million in fines.

Anderson’s client in the Suffolk case, whom he’s representing pro bono, is Curtis Lytle from the city of Zuni. He received a notice of violation in June in a Suffolk work zone.

A hearing in the Chesapeake case is scheduled in September. Anderson had also filed a federal lawsuit challenging the use of the cameras, but said Tuesday that case had been withdrawn while the state lawsuits play out.

The judge said he’d issue a ruling on the sovereign immunity claim as well as the demurrer within 30 days via a letter.

Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, natalie.anderson@virginiamedia.com

The bridge and parts of Museum Drive and Museum Parkway closed for significant construction in May as the city progressed on a renovation and improvement project for Lions Bridge Dam. As part of the project, the city’s contracted vendor worked on installing a new concrete roadway, building the dam’s cutoff wall and relocating a waterline.

Last week, the Mariner’s Museum and Park, which owns the dam, announced on social media that the bridge had reopened. However, the iconic stone lions that bookend the bridge remain covered for their protection until more work on the dam is complete.

The city is making improvements to the dam at Mariners’ Lake to ensure that it can receive certification of operation and maintenance from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, Dam Safety Division and to make sure it can withstand being overtopped during significant storm events.

The dam was built in the 1930s — before modern dam safety regulations — and was overtopped in 1999 and 2012 during storms.

“It’s overdue for the rehab,” said Newport News Project Manager Hai Tran.

Due to the level of traffic that crosses the bridge, failure of the dam and roadway could prove fatal, according to the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Tran estimates the project will be “substantially complete” by either November or December — slightly ahead of the scheduled Jan. 8 completion date. At that point, the stone lions will be uncovered. The project is slated for “final completion” by April.

Tran said the project entails using articulated concrete blocks to protect the shoreline from erosion, a process known as “armoring.”  The blocks provide an erosion-resistant overlay and will be covered by soil and topsoil so they will not be visible. The project also involves removing trees from along the shoreline because when trees die, their roots decay, leaving a cavity within the dam. If water leaks through these cavities, it can lead to a piping failure.

“If we don’t do anything to the dam right now, it will potentially cause the dam failure,” Tran said. “And you know, the bridge may collapse because of that.”

Josh Janney, joshua.janney@virginiamedia.com

The Virginia State Crime Commission — which analyzed six years of state car crash data — said there were 1,005 crash fatalities on the Old Dominion’s roadways in 2022, up from 843 in 2017.

More than 5,300 people in Virginia — including 923 in Hampton Roads — were killed in car crashes during that stretch, the report says. That included people who died in cars and trucks as well as those struck while walking or riding bicycles.

The increase in roadway deaths, the state report said, is a result of “an escalation in risky driving behaviors,” such as speeding, impaired driving and failing to wear a seat belt. Larger and heavier vehicles also likely played a role, the report said.

The 19% jump in fatalities came despite a 4% reduction in total car crashes in Virginia over the same six-year period, the report shows.

Speed was a factor in nearly half — or 43% — of the state’s roadway fatalities, while alcohol was a factor in just over a quarter of them. More than a third of those killed — or 37% — were not wearing seat belts.

The increase in roadway deaths came as police and sheriff’s deputies throughout the state have sharply cut back on the number of speeding tickets they handed out.

“While Virginia has a number of laws meant to promote roadway safety, the enforcement of many of these laws has been significantly decreasing in recent years,” the report said.

Cutbacks in traffic enforcement that began during the pandemic have still not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

In 2022, for example, there were just over 171,500 speeding tickets issued statewide for people accused of going up to 19 miles over posted limits. That was down 37% from the more than 274,000 such speeding tickets in 2017.

Tickets for “reckless driving by speed” — for going 20 mph or more above the limit — also fell sharply, the numbers show. There were just over 52,000 such tickets issued in 2022 — a 47% drop from the more than 99,000 handed out five years earlier.

Charges brought for failing to wear a seat belt have likewise dropped sharply — to about 21,000 such tickets statewide in 2022 from nearly 39,000 in 2017. That’s a reduction of 46%.

Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, said the manpower shortages at the state’s police departments are real — and it affects basic public safety.

“We just don’t have as many people out there on the road as we need to have,” she said. “It’s a big concern.”

Aggressive driving, including people hitting speeds of more than 100 mph, is on the rise, Schrad added. The crashes that do occur, she said, “are more likely to have serious injuries and fatalities.”

Police manpower shortages, she said, began across the country with officer retention and recruitment challenges following the George Floyd protests in 2020. “They didn’t feel like they had the respect of the public anymore,” she said.

It’s been a struggle in many departments ever since, Schrad said.

Moreover, she said, there’s there’s been “a hesitation” by some departments to conduct the high visibility traffic stops that once were routine.

“We’ve been trying to restore that positive relationship with our communities,” Schrad said. “To make sure people understand that when you pull somebody over for a traffic violation, you’re doing it not only in their best interest, but in the interest of other people on the road.”

The Virginia State Crime Commission first publicly presented the results of their car crash research at a meeting in November. But the commission completed the report this year — and first published it online June 30 as part of the board’s annual report to the governor and General Assembly.

The commission a 13-member state board that includes six members of the House of Delegates, three members of the state Senate, three citizens appointed by the governor, and a representative of the state attorney general’s office.

Among other things, the commission advises the General Assembly on possible changes that could be made to state law. In this case, for example, that includes changes “to promote roadway safety.”

To reduce traffic crash fatalities, the report said, Virginia should consider expanding remote speed monitoring and make failing to wear a seat belt a primary offense — which would mean someone could be pulled over for that alone.

States where not wearing a safety belt is a primary offense, the report said, tend to have better seat belt usage and fewer fatalities.

The commission said the state could also boost technology to help officers determine whether drivers are impaired by drugs. The state can also bar headphone use while driving and create a new criminal charge for injuring someone by reckless driving.

The study — conducted in 2023 at the request of the General Assembly — included examining six years of Virginia Department of Transportation car crash data, delving into traffic laws and talking with various stakeholders.

The report found that there were nearly 734,000 traffic crashes — and more than 5,300 roadway fatalities — in Virginia between 2017 and 2022.

More than 85% of the fatal collisions were on non-interstate roadways, the report said, and more than half — or 54% — were single-vehicle accidents. About 71% of those who died on the roads were male.

A significant number of pedestrians were struck and killed by cars in Virginia.

They accounted for 771 of the fatalities over the six years — or about 15% of the total. Their numbers spiked sharply to 171 pedestrian deaths in 2022, up 50% from five years earlier.

About a third of the pedestrians killed were above legal limits for intoxication, the report shows. Those between 50 to 69 were more likely than other age groups to be killed while walking. And most pedestrian fatalities occur at night.

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com

Correction: Due to a reporting error, a prior version of this story undercounted the number of roadway fatalities in Hampton Roads between 2017 and 2022. There were 923 roadway fatalities in the region in that six-year period, according to the state report.