How vehicle safety regulations have changed over the past 50 years

When motorized vehicles first came on the market, they shared streets with horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians, causing chaos. State governments realized they needed to implement automotive regulations to keep citizens safe.

Connecticut became the first state to introduce traffic laws when it enacted speed limits in 1901. The same year, New York required car owners to register their vehicles.

By 1910, according to the Woodstock History Center, more than 315,000 motorized vehicles were on the road, creating a great need to reduce traffic jams. In 1914, the first permanent electric traffic light debuted in Cleveland, with green and red signals telling drivers when to go and stop.

Drivers, however, couldn't stop their powerful cars on a dime when the light changed. It wasn't until 1923, when Garrett Morgan invented a three-signal light with a mode that stopped traffic in all directions, that intersections and driving became safer.

By 1930, 23 million cars clogged American roadways, according to the National Museum of American History. What was once a novelty for the wealthy had become an indispensable mode of transportation, with over half of American families owning a car.

Still, not all states regulated who could drive. In 1935, 39 of the then 48 states required driver's licenses—but most didn't require driving tests. Haphazard driving education, often taught by auto salespeople or family members, gave way to formalized high school driver's ed classes.

Unfortunately, more training didn't reduce car crashes. By 1950, Federal Highway Administration data shows that fatalities had increased to 33,186, with a fatality rate of 7.2 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (compared to 1.3 in 2022, per IIHS data).

Alarmed with the rising number of fatalities, President Dwight D. Eisenhower prioritized traffic safety when he took office in 1953. Early efforts included the creation of a federal charter for the National Safety Council and a modestly successful Safe Driving Day initiative to encourage public support of caution on the roads.

Perhaps Eisenhower's most significant impact came in 1956 when he signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which created the interstate system. Multilane highways had enough space and provided a safer network for automotive travel. By 1960, the fatality rate had dropped to 5.1 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.

In the 1960s, the focus on traffic safety pivoted from drivers and roads to cars.

In 1965, consumer advocate Ralph Nader published the book "Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile," which took General Motors to task for safety issues with the Chevrolet Corvair. Nader also criticized the federal government for allowing lax vehicle safety standards that required drivers to be perfect to avoid an accident.

The book caused an uproar in the auto industry, but it spurred the government to action. New legislation created the National Traffic Safety Agency and National Highway Safety Agency.

By 1968, the federal government mandated seat belts in cars, though usage rules didn't gain traction until 1984. New York was the first state to require seat belt usage, but only for front-seat passengers. Since then, most states have implemented safety belt requirements—except New Hampshire, which still has no seat belt law for adults.

Today, the NHTSA estimates seat belt usage saves 15,000 lives annually.

The now-standard airbag also made its first appearance in this era, though an early iteration had been patented in the 1950s. The 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado was the first commercially available car to have this safety feature. Much like with seatbelts, though, airbag adoption took decades and wasn't required until the 1999 model year.

The NHTSA estimates that airbags saved 50,457 lives from 1987 to 2017.

Safer cars didn't just save lives; they also saved the insurance industry a lot of money. It wanted to continue that trend, so it had to figure out how to encourage more auto safety developments.

The solution was crash tests. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety started conducting crash tests in 1992 to show what happens to vehicles and passengers in different crash scenarios.

Even as manufacturers made safer vehicles, consumers weren't necessarily doing their part to maintain safety, particularly by failing to use seat belts and driving under the influence.

Drunken driving moved to the forefront in 1980 when grieving mother Candace Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Drivers after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. The group soon became a national force, lobbying lawmakers to enact stricter drunk driving laws and increasing public awareness about the dangers of driving under the influence.

MADD says research showed that teens were more likely to binge drink than adults, so it began a teenage drinking prevention campaign. This effort led to the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which raised the drinking age to 21 across the country.

In the latter half of the 1990s, MADD campaigned to lower the national standard for blood alcohol content to 0.08, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 2000. These tighter laws contributed to a nearly 44% decrease in fatalities caused by impaired drivers between 1982 and 2022, per NHTSA data.

The government also endorsed seat belt use as a way to prevent fatalities. In 1983, IIHS-HLDI data shows just 14% of front-seat occupants wore safety belts, though wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of death by 45% and the risk of injury by 50%.

Two separate initiatives got people to buckle up. In 1993, North Carolina started the "Click It or Ticket" campaign to crack down on unbuckled riders. Within a year, seat belt usage rose from 64% to 81%. By 2004, all states had similar programs.

On a national level, the NHTSA partnered with the Ad Council in 1985 on a highly effective campaign featuring Vince and Larry, crash test dummies who showed viewers the perils of not wearing a seatbelt, saying, "You could learn a lot from a dummy."

By the campaign's end in 1999, front-seat safety belt usage had jumped to 67%, and the two dummies were believed to have saved more than 85,000 lives. Continued efforts have paid off. In 2022, 92% of front-seat occupants buckled up.

Child safety also came to the forefront around this time. By 1985, every state had laws about child safety seats, but parents had issues. To fix that, certified child passenger safety technicians taught parents how to install child restraints properly. New laws in the 2000s expanded the usage of child safety seats to older and bigger children.

Between 1980 and 2022, child passenger fatalities dropped nearly 55% to 604, according to IIHS data.

The NHTSA noted in 2002 that fatal crashes were increasing with light trucks, including SUVs, an increasingly popular vehicle. From 1991 to 2000, fatal passenger car crashes dropped 12.1%, but fatal light truck crashes rose 37%, with rollovers happening more frequently.

To combat this problem, the NHTSA ruled in 2007 that car manufacturers had to install electronic stability control systems in light vehicles. A 2024 study published in the Journal of Safety Research found that ESC systems may help prevent rollovers but not other crashes, meaning they may be less effective than previously thought, though the authors suggest more research is needed.

Driver behavior took a turn for the worse with the rise of cell phones, which have led to distracted motorists. Between 2000 and 2002, NHTSA data shows the number of drivers holding a phone at any given time rose 47.1% to almost 567,000. Incidences of phone-related car crashes gave lawmakers pause.

In 2007, Washington became the first state to ban texting while driving. Now, 49 states have banned texting while driving, 30 states have banned handheld cellphone use, and 36 states have banned all cellphone use for novice drivers, per the Governors Highway Safety Association.

While cellphones and screen-based infotainment systems might distract drivers, NHTSA says other technological advances benefit drivers.

In 2018, backup cameras became a requirement under federal law to help drivers see anything they might encounter while in reverse. Some cars also have an alert system that beeps if a person or object is in its path or coming toward it while in reverse.

Similarly, automatic emergency braking systems prevent crashes through sensors that detect cars and pedestrians that are too close. If the driver doesn't stop, the system will apply the brakes. The Department of Transportation ruled in 2024 that it will require AEB systems for cars and light trucks by 2029. It expects this change to save 360 lives and prevent 24,000 injuries a year.

Other advanced driver assistance systems use technology to help drivers stay alert and avoid crashes by monitoring blind spots, preventing forward collisions, and keeping cars in their lanes. They keep drivers on course with lights, sounds, vibrations, and even by moving the steering wheel. Some technologies can help drivers maintain safe distances from other vehicles, particularly when they use cruise control.

In 2024, the NHTSA added pedestrian automatic emergency braking, blind spot warning, blind spot intervention, and lane-keeping assist technologies to its New Car Assessment Program, also known as the 5-Star Safety Ratings program, which helps consumers evaluate car safety.

These advancements may assist drivers, but that doesn't mean drivers can ignore the road—for now. Self-driving cars are the wave of the future, with the promise that they'll eliminate most car crashes.

However, experts, like former National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt, now CBS News' transportation safety analyst, say self-driving cars are still years away from widespread use. Developers have been unable to clear hurdles, including the cars' ability to recognize and react to something unexpected, such as a cyclist cutting across traffic. Dawn, dusk, and turning are other challenges—researchers found that autonomous vehicles performed worse than humans in those situations, sharing their findings in a paper published in a 2024 issue of Nature Communications.

Even with those issues, people can already experience what the future holds. Waymo has robotaxis in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas, and Tesla anticipates launching a robotaxi service in Austin in June.

Additional research by Carren Jao. Story editing by Mike Taylor. Additional editing by Alizah Salario and Elisa Huang. Copy editing by Kristen Wegrzyn. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.