Our 2022 annual report is here! We have spent the past year researching automated vehicles, traffic safety, drugged driving, and much more. Plus, read about our upcoming name change to "Driving Safety Research Institute" on page 3.

For more than two decades, the Iowa DOT has been encouraging Iowa communities to consider converting certain four-lane streets to three lanes (also known as a “road diet”) with the aim to improve safety and reduce crashes. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of things, including the prevalence of drugged driving. The University of Iowa was selected as one of the collection sites to examine the prevalence of drugged driving among seriously and fatally injured road users

Using devices installed on farm equipment, researchers collected data and video on vehicle interactions with on-road farm equipment.

If you’ve driven an electric vehicle, you’ve likely used regenerative braking. But is there a safety benefit to this feature? “You basically get a head start on the braking so that the stopping distance is reduced,” explained Chris Schwarz, PhD.

A new type of headlight may help save pedestrians from getting struck by vehicles at night, studied at University of Iowa with researchers from Toyota CSRC.

See what we’ve been up to in the past year in our NADS Annual Report, with stories about ADS for Rural America, driving drowsy, regenerative braking safety benefits, cannabis and driving, and more. 

Check out our Director Dan McGehee’s expert take on teen driving safety and a ranking of the best states for teen drivers. Do you agree with Iowa’s ranking?

Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth O'Neal, a postdoctoral research scholar at the National Advanced Driving Simulator and the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, for receiving a K99/R00 Award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

When parents are in the vehicle with their teenage driver, crash rates are low. However, as soon as teens are by themselves, the crash rates skyrocket. Can new-driver training programs be used to effectively lower those rates?