For the second year in a row, Hawaii ranks among the 10 best states for its highway traffic safety laws, according to an advocacy group’s annual report.
The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, based in Washington, D.C., released its 12th annual Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws on Thursday.
It urges lawmakers to close "lethal loopholes" in traffic safety laws.
"Every single state and the District of Columbia are missing an important highway safety law or have dangerous gaps in existing laws," said the group’s president, Jacqueline Gillan, in a webcast news conference in Washington.
Rankings for the best and worst states were based on the number of traffic safety laws each state has that the group considers optimal in protecting occupants from injury and death. The report focuses on 15 traffic safety laws the group says are essential, such as requiring seat belts for both front and rear seat occupants, ignition interlock devices for convicted drunken drivers, helmets for all motorcycle riders and graduated driver’s licenses for teens.
In Hawaii, adult motorcycle riders do not have to wear helmets.
States ranked the best achieved a "green" rating that indicates significant advancement toward adoption of all 15 traffic safety laws recommended by the advocacy group. Those states have 11 to 15 laws that include seat belt laws, or nine or more laws that include seat belt laws and a helmet law for all riders.
California, Delaware, Illinois, Oregon, Indiana, Maine, Rhode Island, Washington and Louisiana were the nine other best states, along with the District of Columbia.
States ranked the worst received a "red" rating that indicates poor performance due to a lack of basic safety laws, according to the report. The states with low rankings have fewer than seven laws and don’t require front and rear seat belts.
The worst states were North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming and Florida.
Despite Hawaii’s favorable ranking, the advocacy group said the state needs to do more.
What’s missing, according to the report, is an all-rider motorcycle helmet law as well as laws involving teen drivers: increasing the minimum age to 16 from 15 1⁄2 for a learner’s permit, a stronger nighttime restriction provision and raising the age limit for an unrestricted license to 18.
Currently, you must be age 16 to be eligible to take a road test for a driver’s license.
Of the helmet law, Hawaii requires only riders 17 and younger to wear a helmet. The state once required all riders to wear helmets, but that law was repealed in 1977.
During the news conference, Catherine Chase, the organization’s vice president of governmental affairs, called on states to adopt helmet laws.
"There is no excuse to not have this lifesaving, common-sense law in their books," she said.
The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety is an alliance of consumer, medical, public health and safety groups, and insurance companies working to make America’s roads safer, according to its website. For more on the 2015 report, go to www.saferoads.org.
