(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 550: Crash First, Fix Later Mentality

Jeff Wood: Andrew Rogers, welcome to the Talking Headways podcast.

Andrew Rogers: Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Wood: Thanks for being here. Before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Andrew Rogers: Sure. So Andrew Rogers, a recovering public servants.
Uh, originally a, a country lawyer from Detroit who got a start as a consumer protection attorney in the automotive industry. But a long time ago, I decided that DC needed one more attorney and made my way and got a job in the US Senate where I started working on infrastructure policy. And that found its way to a couple different opportunities, including getting to have a hand in the latest and greatest surface transportation reauthorization legislation, which I think is affectionately referred to by most as the bipartisan infrastructure law.
As part of that, I then had the immense privilege of not only getting to write a good chunk of that law, but then implementing it as both deputy administrator and as chief counsel at the Federal Highway Administration.

Jeff Wood: I’m wondering though, going back even further, before you were a country lawyer, were you always interested in transportation policy or were you interested in cars or were you interested in anything to do with cities?
Like when you were a little kid, was this something that was inside of you early on? You know, growing

Andrew Rogers: up in Michigan and Detroit, I think it is somewhat in our DNA. Growing up in that space certainly had an interest in the automotive industry, particularly in vehicle safety and consumer protection, and that is really what sort of helped me find my way to where I am today.

Jeff Wood: I always ask people this question because I find it interesting the way that people kind of, you know, wind their way to their careers in whatever form or fashion. I’m also curious, how do you become the deputy FHWA administrator? Is there like a straight path or is it a long winding kind of circuitous road?

Andrew Rogers: I think different pathways for different personalities. But, um, for mine it was, you know, I just kept putting my hand up when some of these opportunities presented themselves. And, you know, I say it [00:04:00] somewhat in jest, but the reality is, is that I thought it was a lot of fun to both be able to have a hand in writing legislation.
And then the first job I had at U-S-D-O-T is Chief Counsel, where I got to answer the question. What do you think Congress meant by that? I felt like I had the answer to the test and so writing a lot of the guidance and standing up some of these programs, particularly the new programs, the brand new programs, some of the infrastructure related to resiliency and charging, and some of the more data-driven technology policies that were in our cutting edge.
Uh, being able to stand those up for the first time. It wasn’t without its learning curves, but it felt like a pretty incredible opportunity. And so when I was offered the chance by the President and by Secretary Buttigieg to move from Chief Counsel, then to Deputy to start implementing some of these programs, you know, how could I resist?
So which programs did you have a part in putting together for the I A A? I listed a, a good chunk of them there. Anything that really touched sort of the combination of technology and transportation just captured my interest and electrification and automation in particular is just something that has always fascinated me.
And I’m not referring to like the Jetsons type technology things that are 50 years out in the future. I’m really more interested in things that are here today or really are just around the corner. Things that will help make people’s lives better, that will get us from A to B more safely, more efficiently with less emissions, and do so in a way that you know, makes people’s lives better, which ultimately is what transportation’s.

Jeff Wood: How do you determine when you’re writing legislation whether something is like a Jetsons technology or it’s actually here? You know, we’ve talked to Peter Norton and him on to talk about his book Gotama and, and a number of folks, Paris Marxs and others who tell us, you know, some of this stuff, they say it’s five years away, but it never really comes to pass.
And so we’re always five years away from something, five years away. And so I’m curious what is the point at which something is solid enough to where you can say, oh, we can write legislation around this. Or maybe it never is. You know, there’s a saying that, uh, there’s
Andrew Rogers: more pilots in transportation than Delta Airlines.
The difference being that Delta pilots actually land. So it, it, [00:06:00] it is tricky because everybody that is coming to you asking for eligibility in one of these programs or to pilot something, you know, usually has a vested interest in some way, but. What we’ve seen more of in the transportation space, at least, particularly in the last several years, is you’re seeing a ton of private investment in this and then you’re seeing it actually deploy at scale.
And usually by the time the government, particularly the federal government is, is ready to fund something at scale, it’s probably fairly proven and you can quickly sift through. What is more fantastical and far off and what is, you know, a proven technology that could improve our transportation system Today, it’s really just a matter of getting the eligibility in place and getting the appropriate incentives lined up.

Jeff Wood: One of the things you all wrote specifically was about EV chargers, and those are here today and those work, and I’m curious about what your thoughts are. You know, the last couple weeks we had some news that basically the Trump administration had to not eat crow, but just say, okay, well we have to release these funds.
I’m curious what your thoughts are on like that process and how the rulemaking changed or the guidance about who can apply and what are the benchmarks that you need to get to.

Andrew Rogers: I mean, look, people have a lot of strong opinions about EVs and EV charging, and unfortunately that became a, I think a political football at the end of last year, which, you know, once that happens, it can sometimes be difficult to recover and separate fact from fiction.
But, you know, candidly, I was thrilled to see that the administration did what it said it was gonna do. Obviously, I wish it would’ve happened a little faster as really, uh, the principal author of that program, but it’s here, it’s back. The money is flowing again. States are absolutely taking advantage of it.
There’s a lot of potential energy that is quickly becoming kinetic energy in state dots that are announcing awards quickly. And to this administration’s credit, it is shorter, it is streamlined. Whether or not that leads to faster deployments, you know, we’ll see, you know, that’ll play out however it plays out.
But I was pleased that, you know, despite I think a lot of the, the back and forth over the last several months that at the end of the day, new guidance [00:08:00] was published and states are able to utilize it again. So, you know I’ll take a win where I can find ’em.

Jeff Wood: I just saw that Alaska, for example, is putting together $50 million, including the charge funding from the federal government. So that’s, you know, like you said, some states are going at it right away and making sure that they’re getting into that pot of money that they thought they were deserved.

Andrew Rogers: Yeah, that’s right. And again, I think it’s something that became probably unnecessarily politicized or at least sensationalized in the press.

And look, you know, everybody wanted chargers faster. It was very popular, very high profile program. And there’s a lot that has been said and could be said about that. But if you look at some of the early adopters states, you know, honestly some of the most read of Republican states were some of the earliest at the line.
And I think what you’re seeing now in Alaska is further proof of that is. They know there’s a need. They know there’s a demand. At the end of the day, it’s just transportation infrastructure, you know? And if it happens to be electrified and move a slightly different class of vehicle, so be it. But there’s still a need for it.
And state dots recognize that, and there’s a reason that they’re getting in line to get these projects delivered again.

Jeff Wood: I think there was a lot of frustration with that about the IHJA, at least in the active transportation space, about how much, you know, road building there was, how much money there was for highways, how much there was for not active transportation, not transit, those types of things. And so I’m wondering like for example, when you’re setting up the EV charger regulations and, and rules and giving out money, like we had Gabe Klein on to talk about how you fit. EV chargers in places like here in San Francisco where I don’t have a garage and I don’t have access to, you know, a parking space. And so how do I, if I had an electric car, how would I do that? And so what’s the balance between trying to deal with the advocates in a space that are more urban maybe, and others who might be more rural or suburban?

Andrew Rogers: I wanna be careful. It’s not so much dealing with the advocates ’cause honestly, I think the advocates on both sides of these issues help deliver a better product.
You wanna pressure test however you deliver these programs. But a reminder that at the end of the day, the role of the federal government is to set the rules of the road, so to speak, to provide the funding, and then kind of get outta the way. And ultimately it is the [00:10:00] state dots. And to a certain extent in other programs, you know, the NPOs, the RPOs and tribes that can deliver some of these projects on the ground.
But it’s not the role, at least as we have the system set up today for the federal government to go into a given jurisdiction and be overly prescriptive about exactly where and how to deliver. It’s up to San Francisco to decide whether, you know, curbside charging and level twos is more appropriate than a hub outside of the city with, you know, a bank of a megawatt charging.
You know, ultimately they’re gonna decide how best to spend, whether it’s Nevy or any other program dollars. And you know, for my druthers, I think that’s probably. A better balance than the federal government trying to tell every single jurisdiction exactly where and how to lean in. Even if, you know, if you’re a huge fan of active transportation or a huge fan of capacity expansion, or you’re somewhere in the middle, the pendulum will continue to swing.
And so as that happens, it’s probably best left to the locals to ultimately decide how to deliver transportation systems that will best suit their constituents.

Jeff Wood: Reauthorization is coming up again. Obviously there’s been meetings on the hill about it. They’re often late. I wanna get your feeling for how and where the bill is at the moment, and whether it will actually be a six year authorization or like many others go past that.

Andrew Rogers: Yeah, so I like to remind folks that, you know, IIJA or bipartisan infrastructure law became, was enacted in November of 21, but the vast majority of that legislation was, was written at least in draft form by probably midway late 2019. At that point, it was called America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act.
Donald Trump was president. John Bara was chairman of the EPW committee. My former boss, Tom Harper, was ranking member. The core of the base bill was largely done. Now, it’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of additional refinements and improvements and all of Division J added much later down the road, but I, I provide that [00:12:00] context to say that while, yes, September 30th, 2026, when the current reauthorization ends feels both like it’s a long ways away and it’s tomorrow.
It doesn’t mean that. This isn’t a live dress rehearsal, that the rules don’t matter and that the hearings don’t matter. That the meetings aren’t important because the committee staff are busily drafting and negotiating right now on what that will look like. And lemme just put it this way, you don’t wanna be an amendment.
You know, that’s not a strategy if you’re trying to meaningfully change these programs. And so whether. I don’t wanna predict the future here. Certainly after ranking Member Larson refused to do so a couple of weeks ago, but if September 30th, 2026 comes and goes and we don’t have a brand new reauthorization, that doesn’t mean that a lot of work hasn’t gone into shaping the next one.
That will be, you know, nearly completed by that time.

Jeff Wood: I was watching a YouTube video you’re on with, uh, some of your partners, and I thought it was interesting, the answer to the question, what’s the best time to influence Congress? And you kind of answered that a little bit, but for advocates and other folks who might be listening to the show, when is that best time

Andrew Rogers: yesterday?
The big ideas, you know, the top line funding new programs. Are you gonna formalize something or were you gonna keep it a discretionary grant? Are you gonna collapse eligibilities? That sort of core work that happens pretty early on in a negotiation. And if you’re coming in late and saying, I want a $20 billion program to do X and Congress has already finished its hearings and staff are trading discussion drafts that’s a tough conversation to have if you haven’t really laid that groundwork.
Cultivated champions and you know, convinced a significant group of individuals and relevant stakeholders that. Your idea is worth being part of the next reauthorizations. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but the work is happening now and again, whether or not we finished that work this year or before September 30th doesn’t change the need to engage [00:14:00] robustly leading up to it.

Jeff Wood: So you all are launching Mars modern Analytics for roadway safety, and I’m curious who’s part of the group and is this part of your strategy to influence the goings on that are happening at the moment?

Andrew Rogers: So MARS is the modern analytics for Roadway Safety Coalition. It’s made up of safety advocates, technology partners, automakers, uh, transportation professionals, and we’re really focused on one big goal moving America from a reactive safety model to a proactive one.
One where predictive analytics can help spot risks and prevent tragedies before they happen. I sort of talk about this in the context of some of the lessons that I learned. I think the hard way during my time at U-S-D-O-T in Federal Highways, you create these programs when you’re working in congress or when you’re an advocate and you know, whether it’s funding or specific attention is given to safety.
You know, the assumption is, okay, more money for safety equals safer outcomes. And I think the harsh reality is we’ve been pouring a lot of money in the name of safety for decades and yet. We’re still losing nearly 40,000 individuals every single year. What Mars is about is not just more funding in the name of safety, although it’s critically important that we fund safety.
Let me be very clear about that. What the Mars Coalition is really interested in is leaning into some of those technologies. Again, not those far off Jetson technologies, but the ones that are here today on a shelf that could be deployed in our being deployed and to really change our mindset from one that waits for the bad thing to happen, waits for the crash, and then fixes it later.
And instead targets those near misses, those preventable tragedies and is more prophylactic in our response to road safety.

Jeff Wood: Yeah. You say this crash first, fix it later, is the way that we do things now.

Andrew Rogers: It’s, you know, look, every state has to write a strategic highway safety plan every year to basically explain how it plans to deliver safety projects throughout its state.
And it’s not a terribly well [00:16:00] kept secret that. That is basically a creative writing exercise and is an opportunity to identify projects that may absolutely have a safety benefit, don’t get me wrong, but is it gonna deliver the most good, the most efficacious use of federal dollars? Is there a hotspot that’s just around the corner in a different neighborhood that.
Those dollars would be far better spent towards, you know, that isn’t necessarily how those plans get developed today. And instead of waiting for crashes to happen and reacting, which is really what we do today, if we took some of those, those tools, some of those analytical tools that can tell us where accelerations are occurring, harsh braking and excessive speeding or distracted driving all the tools that we can now measure today, very appreciably and said, let’s go after those hotspots.
Let’s target with those interventions using proven safety countermeasures. I think we would see a very different safety outcome, and we would probably do so with a far more responsible use of taxpayer dollars.

Jeff Wood: Can you gimme some examples? I see the terms telematics and technology and ai, and I kind of like my eyes gloss over because I’m just like, that’s not specific enough.
Maybe that’s just me, but I’m wondering what some of the specifics are those on the shelf things you’re talking about? What are those focused on? Is it just highways? Is it urban areas? I’m curious about the technology, the implementation of those technologies, but also the geographies.

Andrew Rogers: Sure. Lemme lemme give you an example.
So I believe it was midway through last year, the state of Ohio passed a hands-free law related to the use of phones and destructive driving. Governor DeWine has a personal story there related to traffic safety, and he really leaned in on the issue and didn’t want to just sort of pass a law and see what happens.
He wanted to pass a law and measure the efficacy of it and ensure that it was being enforced in a way that would be most effective. And what he did was he partnered with a company called Cambridge Mobile Telematics, and what they did together was measure distracted driving throughout the state of Ohio.
Not just a, you know, spreadsheety [00:18:00] engineer only accessible way, but using visualization tools, sort of like you know, Zillow for safety engineers. And they were able to target where in the state, whether it’s county level, city level municipality, where the most distracted driving was occurring. And that meant they could target education campaigns, variable message signs, they could put out uniformed officers, they could actually lean in and not just pass a along hope.
Or create a program like Congress does and sort of wish, but rather be very direct in helping along a change in policy to reduce, uh, distracted driving events in the state of Ohio. And through a combination of the passage of the law and then the support of the law through these technologies, the effects were remarkable in terms of just how effective they were through the use of this technology.

Jeff Wood: I’m curious also about some other technologies that focus on your phone. The way that you can have apps on your phone for the insurance companies and they can monitor, you know, your speed and those harsh stops and things like that. Yeah, those things are here today, but they’re also you know, some folks will see that as a privacy concern too.

Andrew Rogers: Yeah. I mean, so why should the insurance industry get to have all the fun? Right? So, so they, they’ve had access to, you know, really I think incredible data. You know, your phone comes with a lot of bells and whistles these days, and it’s, it’s a barometer, it’s an accelerometer, it, it can measure crash physics in ways that, you know, you wouldn’t have imagined in some ways that even vehicle telematics are, are less equipped to certainly older models.
And the great thing about mobile telematics or you know, those, some of those phone apps is. You can take it into a 1998 Ford Escort, and guess what? You can still measure the physics of that vehicle. And so for decades, really what the insurance industry has been doing, it used to be through the OBT port device in your vehicle yield ads.
You know you wanna save 15% on your auto insurance. Well, you would put one of these ports into your vehicle, you’d mail it away, and a couple weeks later you’d find out how you were driving and if you were driving and exhibiting less risky behavior. [00:20:00] The insurance industry gave you a break on your insurance.
Pretty good motivator for most Americans, right? Pocketbook? A few years ago, through a combination of some of these technology providers and the insurance industry, they realized, hey, it’s great that we are giving that sort of one-on-one pecuniary feedback to individual drivers about how they’re doing and helping them save money if they exhibit better behaviors.
But what if we took that same data, which is all opted in? You’ve all had to, you know, raise your hand and sign on the dotted line and say, yes, I would like you to measure my driving behavior. ’cause I believe that I will exhibit fewer risk factors and therefore, you know, should receive a reduced rate. And they’ve been able to take that data, anonymize it, aggregate it to alleviate all you know, privacy concerns, and then share that on a aggregated basis with municipalities, with states, with transportation planners.
They don’t care, Jeff, how you are driving to and from work or how I’m driving to and from work, but they do care how 10,000 Jeffs and Andrews are getting to and from work on a given stretch of highway. And what that allows transportation planners do is say, Hey, maybe there’s an issue here if, if you know 70% of the population is speeding here or if there’s harsh braking that’s happening at these times of day.
You know, maybe there’s something about the infrastructure that needs to change and they can utilize these data and the insights from it and quickly deploy safety countermeasures and not have to revert back to what we talked about a few minutes ago, which is this sort of crash first, fix later mentality.

Jeff Wood: I’m interested in folks that raise their hand and say, I want to have my data collected. And I feel like that is a specific group of folks that might be a little bit safer. Uh, mentioned in the IHS notes, it reminds me a little bit of the Strava data that, you know, some cities like, oh, this is great bicycle data, but it’s all the folks who are, have like really fancy bikes and they can afford a, a afford a Strava watch or whatever it is to track their movements.
And so I’m wondering how that data [00:22:00] collection doesn’t get organized in a way that it leaves out a whole large chunk of the population.

Andrew Rogers: Yeah it’s a completely fair question, and it’s honestly one that I shared for a period of time. You know, if the folks that you’re basing this data on are the safest drivers because they think that they can exhibit safe driving behavior and therefore save money, aren’t we?
Essentially relying on bias data. Well, there, well, there’s two things there. Number one, if not withstanding the fact that the safest drivers who have opted in are still exhibiting really risky behaviors on our roadways, that probably still tells us something very important about the infrastructure design.
If even they are having a tough time managing our roads and highways and streets in ways that would exhibit less frisk behavior, there’s probably an intervention necessary. But number two. Uh, it turns out people grossly overestimate just how safe they are or how much do they drive with elements of distraction or how frequently they allow themselves to go more than 11 miles an hour over the speed limit or exhibit those harsher cornering activities.
And so while, yes, I think that there is an assumption there that. The worst of the worst drivers may not raise their hand. The, I believe it’s 55 million US users that have raised their hand and offered their data and told us a heck of a lot about America’s roadways are a more than sufficient sample size for a ton of good to be done at the state, local, and municipal level.

Jeff Wood: Please their phones more than they maybe, uh, maybe should. And especially when they’re driving, they might think, oh, I never used it. And then you see that that’s like 3% of the time they have their phone open in some form or fashion.

Andrew Rogers: Something that I found interesting, and maybe this, maybe this won’t surprise you the way it surprised me, but I was talking with a leader from a rural state the other day and we were looking at some of the data in different pockets of, of his state.
We had suspected that most, you know, heavily urbanized areas was gonna be where most of the distracted [00:24:00] driving was occurring. Far from it, it’s actually those stretches of rural America with straight roads, straight highways, high speeds, where there’s a, I think, a false assumption of safety, which is just, Hey, there’s nobody around.
What’s the harm in me? Sending a text message here or there, or. Engaging in otherwise risky behavior. And so again, that sort of false bravado, that assumption that, well, hey, I can just do it for a few minutes here because there’s fewer people around. Turns out there’s all sorts of risky behavior happening all across our roadways, and there’s plenty to be done about it.

Jeff Wood: There was an article at maybe a couple days ago, Kia Wilson wrote about how the most boring roads are also the most dangerous because of that same, same issue. Yep. Which is really interesting. I’m wondering how this fits into the safe systems pyramid that US two T has been focused on because obviously we’ve been trying so many things for, or not trying so many things for so many years.
And so thinking about this from a different perspective, we had Kerry Watkins and David Ederer on to talk about the safe systems pyramid and their research a number of years ago. But I’m struck by the effort that’s gone into that, at least from the Biden administration before putting together the safe systems approach and sharing that with folks.
And I’m wondering how the stuff that you’re working on fits into that, into the pyramid, into the approach.
Andrew Rogers: It’s certainly intended to be complimentary. You know, this is not to supplant or replace in any way the work of post crash care or preventative measures or the deployment of proven safety countermeasures.
Far from it. Really the work of the Mars Coalition and the work that we are engaged in is, is to just try to get smarter and, and to get smarter faster about how we want to deploy some of those proven safety countermeasures early on. And this work speed sort of kills twice. You know, it kills once on the roads and it can kill again in bureaucracy and drivers go way too fast and governments often go way too slow.
And if we could just swap those two, we’d be in great shape. But the reality here is, is that there’s a lot of wonderful data out there and insights from it that could feed into different parts of the safe systems approach. We need to make sure that it. It isn’t a, you know, old man in a mountain on a [00:26:00] cave where you gotta bring him a rock and says no, bring me a different rock.
We want this to be something where it is widely accessible to the widest possible audience and to the folks that can do the most good with these data. And also that they don’t have to ask, you know, my old agency Federal Highways. The right question, the right way in order to get a thumbs up on eligibility for funding reimbursement.
You know, at the end of the day you owe money dollar rules, so much of this and you can have some of the best data or the, some of the best tools, but if it’s not clear that it will be quickly and widely reimbursed by. Federal highways, there can be some, some pretty robust resistance there. And so part of that job isn’t just to find a home adjacent to the safe systems approach.
It’s to ensure that these tools are readily available in every sense of the word, and that includes the funding necessary to make ’em possible.

Jeff Wood: Do you feel like old engineers and state dots, uh, will embrace the technology and the new collection of data?

Andrew Rogers: You’re gonna get me in trouble. Uh, so I think old engineers and young engineers are both operating under the same playbook, which is again, a very reactive mindset.
And it’s not for a lack of wanting to do more and to do better, but unless you have clear instructions from Congress and therefore from Federal highways to lean into these technology and to utilize these insights. That just isn’t the way we’ve been doing things, and that isn’t the way we’ve been doing things since the Eisenhower era.
Part of the effort of the Mars Coalition is to, you know, let everybody know the water’s fine and to get in and to really embrace and utilize these technologies. And then some of the oldest and some of the best engineers who absolutely would love nothing more than to not only get their hands on these insights, but then to really put ’em into practice.
I think they will be the loudest evangelists among, among all of us in really championing this. But the only way they’re gonna get there is again, that clarity from Congress and the necessary funding to go along with it.
Jeff Wood: I think that works. People take to it, right? Usually if something works and they see that it’s, you know, effective, they’ll actually [00:28:00] jump on board.
Andrew Rogers: That’s right. And you know, there’s also a strong economic argument here, which is prevent ’em is a heck of a lot cheaper than tragedy. And if we can. Lean in in ways that demonstrate efficacy. I mean, here’s an example. So let’s say you, there’s a lot of effort being paid right now around work zone safety and with good reason.
For years, there’s been laws passed and measures put in place to try to improve work zone safety, and yet, every single summer and the construction seasons around the country, we lose far too many lives for construction workers. You know what? If rather than putting up an automatic flagger or putting up a variable message sign or saying, you know, please slow down, or posting the additional heightened fines and fees and jail time associated with it, and sort of hoping that people are acting responsibly, what if we were deploying other safety countermeasures like automated enforcement or uniformed officers, or speed humps, or any of the number of different things that exist today in our playbook?
To try to actually slow people down around these work zones. And then it wasn’t just a matter of using them, but that we were tapping into some of these data insights to immediately determine whether it’s having an impact on traffic blows. Like we don’t have to wait six months and look at the FARs data and go, oh, I guess it didn’t work.
We can, within a matter of hours, see how traffic is reacting to. Whatever that warning sign is or whatever that countermeasure may be, that’s I think really what is so powerful about so much of this is the waiting game is we can eliminate it and in doing so, I think we can save lives.

Jeff Wood: I’m interested also in car design and some of the things that we’ve been talking about in the active transportation world are the design of two large vehicles, SUVs and things like that.
But also like even if you continue to build those, you know, doing things like putting speed limiters in, or at least warning signs that you’re going too fast. When I was in France in 2019 with my family, like I was drive, we were driving this big bus type of a vehicle. It’s probably like a 15 passenger van type of thing, a Citron.
And it would tell me like when I was going over the speed limit in front of me, it was this you’re speeding, you’re speeding. This red [00:30:00] sign that said you’re going too fast. And Scott Wier here in California has tried to pass a bill that looked at that, that didn’t even like work on a, having a governor or anything like that.
It was just like a warning flashing light or something along those lines. And so I’m curious about the, interventions that are possible or not possible because of the way that the politics of them work?

Andrew Rogers: Yeah, so a couple things. None of this is a panacea and no one of these technologies is, is gonna save us from ourselves.
Now, some of them will be more effective than others, but that’s no reason to put all of our eggs in one basket or stop putting eggs in any basket because, you know, we don’t see the outcomes that we’re hoping from a given set of policies. You know, my belief, and I think it’s a fairly widely shared and bipartisan belief, is that more safety technology, if accurately defined in vehicles, is generally a good thing.
Now there is overkill. You know, there is distraction at a certain point, but if you’re giving meaningful, accurate feedback to drivers, whether that’s in heads up displays or in dash cams, or after the trip in their, you know, insurance app that says, Hey, you had eight squirrely events during your, your trip to work, I think that’s all good and I think that’s all positive and gets us to where we want to go on the behavioral side.
The other piece of though this is Nitsa, has been trying to build the perfect driver since it’s existed. You know, how are we doing? It’s also trying to build the perfect vehicle and how are we doing? So really this is more about back to the safe systems approach. This is gonna take a lot of different sectors in the transportation space and in these broader systems working in collaboration.
And whether that’s vehicle size and weight, whether that’s warnings associated with it. Whether that is the infrastructure design, whether that is speed limits, whether that’s speed, limiters, I think that, you know, there will be fights like there always are on policy, which I think are, it’s healthy, you know, a healthy tension there.
But we seem to be generally moving [00:32:00] in the direction of trying to adopt more and better technology. Particularly when it leads to safer outcomes. And what I’m hoping is, is that we don’t get too distracted by the spectacle of the Jetsons. And instead we really focus and hone in on things that are here today that work and lean into those.
First let’s eat our vegetables before we have our dessert.

Jeff Wood: Sometimes harder to do than say. One other thing is, you know, in collecting data and, and you mentioned crash first worry about it later, is the near misses and the frustration, I think that cyclists and pedestrians feel when they’re on the roads and the ability to take some of that data from a not yet crash, but possibly crash in the future and make that into something that is actually actionable.
Because I know that for a lot of folks, they had ’em near miss or maybe they got a little bump and they decide they’re not gonna walk and bike anymore and walking and biking and taking transit and, and some of the other. Active transportation things are some of the best ways to reduce crashes because it’s, uh, infinitely safer than driving.
And so I’m curious about that. It’s collecting the data from the stuff that didn’t quite happen.
Andrew Rogers: Yeah, so, you know, this is not intended to be a entirely autocentric conversation. I think, you know, one of the opportunities here is whether it’s. Dash cam or traffic like footage, whether it’s telematics from a vehicle or mobile telematics from your phone, whether it’s some of the other insights that come from data sources is we can also glean information about those near misses and start to aggregate, you know, where we have those hotspots that don’t necessarily involve a vehicle, or maybe they do involve a vehicle, but where a vehicle and a pedestrian or a bicyclist or some other form of transportation may be intersecting in ways that are unsafe and.
Again part of the opportunity here is understanding where we have those less safe locations and doing something about it. But I think on the other side of the coin, Jeff, is where we’ve seen the system work really well and we’re not seeing those hotspots emerge [00:34:00] and we’re actually seeing great traffic flows and alleviated congestion and multiple forms of transportation coexisting in harmony.
Let’s, let’s do a little r and d. Let’s rip off and duplicate. Let’s do more of that, and less of what doesn’t work. And that is the other opportunity here, which is to take, again, I think some of the power of AI and AI gets thrown around a lot today, like data did a couple of years ago. But you know, if you can identify something that works in Topeka, Kansas and you see the exact same problem set in Tallahassee, Florida.
Rather than spend seven years in 16 studies and hopefully some guesswork can get there. If you could just translate then say, Hey, we had this problem over here. You’re seeing it over there. Why don’t you employ the same solution? Let’s do more of that. And that’s really where I think some of the opportunity rests on transportation systems that are far beyond just, you know, the most autocentric we can get into operations, we can get into micro mobility and some of those other more than burgeoning areas that are really important to deliver safer outcomes and candidly are for most people a better way of getting around, particularly in urbanized areas.
Jeff Wood: Is there a question you don’t get asked about

Andrew Rogers: So a frustration that I have.
There was a tremendous amount of attention paid earlier this year when 67 lives were lost at Reagan National Airport when a plane went down over the Potomac for, it sounds like a number of potentially different reasons, and NTSB is still reporting on that, but it made national news. They make congressional hearings, oversight for weeks and is going to be the subject of multiples of billions of dollars of additional funding to overhaul our FAA air traffic control systems and really everything about how we move people through the skies.
The sad reality there is we lose more than those 67 individuals on our roads every single day. In fact, it’s nearly double. [00:36:00] We don’t have congressional earrings every week. We don’t have multiples of billions of dollars being poured at it at the drop of a hat. And it’s not to say that the work of updating and modernizing, modernizing RFA isn’t critically important.
I strongly stand behind it, and I’m glad it’s happening. I just wish there was the same level of attention paid to, you know, a national tragedy that is occurring every single day in every single city in America. In a way that would not just be something we accept as a cost of doing business or just a part of American life, you know, I refuse to believe it has to be this way.
And I think that, again, as the doers, you know, as we prove this out more. I think that as you see this curve, this nasty curve bend closer to zero more quickly. I’m hopeful that people will recognize that this isn’t just something we have to live with, but rather it’s a national tragedy that we have a really a moral duty to address and, and that we will lean into it in the way that I know we can.

Jeff Wood: It’s funny, I mean, the risk profile of driving is just people are they risk their lives every day getting in a car because in a place like Texas, there’s a person that dies every single day for like the last several decades. It’s a streak that’s not been broken for a very long time. And so when we talk about this risk profile, people just take it as like kind of the cost of living and the cost of doing business is like we go out on the roads and we just don’t think about it.
But people are more likely to die in their vehicle than they are maybe walking down the street or biking down the street or taking transit. And yet, you know, some of those things get a lot of attention when something happens. And so I think that’s frustrating to the act transportation world is that, people are getting killed in cars all the time. And you, you mentioned 40,000. I mean, that’s a lot of people. And so I think that’s a major frustration, and I share your feelings on that because you know, when there is a major air crash, we don’t just continue on our day, right? They stop everything. Right?
And then they make sure that they figure out why it happened, what happened, et cetera. But we don’t do that, like you said, for vehicles and for car crashes. And there’s folks out there that are like, maybe we should stop [00:38:00] things and, you know, take a week and put some cones down on the street where a collision happened, where somebody died and let people.
Know Kevin Kza at the University of Colorado has been talking about this. It’s like, maybe we should like have almost like the white bicycles, which is a, a marker of somebody was killed in this intersection. Maybe there should be something in the intersection after somebody dies that’s like, Hey, this happens.
This happens every day. And it’s really frustrating when you need to do something about it.
Andrew Rogers: Yeah, I mean, this is a little morbid, but design is destiny. And if we continue to build our roads for speed and sprawl the way we have for the last, half century plus, we shouldn’t expect different outcomes.
Now the good news here is that I do think there is a large number of old and new engineers of city planners, of folks focused on all aspects of, of moving people and things from place to place that are thinking about things differently and. Do want to meaningfully bend that curve towards zero and do want to do so in a way that is not just safer, but less emission intensive and more active and more efficient and less congested.
And all of the, you know, it turns out it’s not just good policy to have safer roadways, it’s also better for business. And there is a large number of individuals, and you speak to many of them who. I am confident we’ll be leaning into these opportunities, these technologies, and these solutions in a way that will get the national attention in a way that actually delivers different outcomes.
But look, if we keep following the blueprint and the budget is the blueprint, we shouldn’t expect a different outcome. And. I’m optimistic and maybe fatally so, but I’m, I’m an optimist and believe that, you know, we are putting our best foot forward and the new leaders in this space are really starting to change the thinking and move some hearts and minds in a way that’s gonna lead to a better tomorrow.

Jeff Wood: What’s been the response so far to this work, to this advocacy? The group that we put together?

Andrew Rogers: Again, fatally optimistic here, but I’ll let you know the first time that [00:40:00] somebody says we’re not interested in, you know, leading into technology and saving lives. You know, this is something that whether you’re coming at it from an economic perspective and you want to see freight and supply chains more resilient and less congestion equals, you know, a better day in the office for.
Amazon and UPS and DHL and and FedEx. Or if you’re someone who’s focused on micro mobility or active transportation, and you wanna make sure that people and bikes and cars stay separated when they want to stay separated in a safe way. Or you’ve spent 40 years at a state DOT and you know, you’re sick of banging your head against the wall and seeing the same thing happen.
You know, I think the, the response has been, yes, please. More of this. Um, thank you for something new and different. We just need Congress to do their part and to make sure that this isn’t an opportunity that lives out there, that is gone wanting, but rather that Congress is, is leaning into it and ensuring that.
States and cities and tribes and everybody else in between can take full advantage of the opportunity in front of them.

Jeff Wood: Do you think this will make it into the bill? I’ve seen notes. I searched that 350 page monster, which is another problem that we have in terms of seeing what is actually going on in Congress and in the committees.
Because I was like, I can’t read 350 pages, but is it gonna end up in there?

Andrew Rogers: I think so I think that there’s a recognition and there’s a proof of concept. Governor’s Highway Safety Association testified about this earlier this year and I think spoke passionately about not just the opportunity, but some of the, uh, success stories they’ve seen utilizing it already.
I. And look, Congress loves a win when it’s industry driven, when advocates on all sides say yes, and it might save money. You know, it’s a better conversation than I think some of the other conversations that are being had in other corners. And despite some of the, you know, ruffled feathers earlier this year.
Transportation generally still is a very bipartisan issue and I’m confident that ranking members, Larson and Chairman Graves and ranking member White House and Chair Capita will all be able to put their heads together and probably advance something like this through in the next surface [00:42:00] Reauth. So I’ll be there cheering them along the way and thanking them for picking up the slack of what I left outta the last one and making sure we get this over the finish line.
Get into the hands of the folks who can do good with it.

Jeff Wood: Awesome. Where can folks find out more about Mars?
Andrew Rogers: It’s real easy. Mars coalition.org. We are a nonprofit organization comprised almost entirely of safety advocates. And, uh, we will be on the hill, we will be on podcasts like this one, spreading the good word, and making sure that they know that we are working day and night to try to make sure that these technologies get to the people that can put ’em to the highest and best use.

Jeff Wood: And where can folks find you if you wish to be found?

Andrew Rogers: You can find me at [email protected], which is where I, I rest my head most days. You can join us in pushing for this modernization. You know, the safety systems that we have today is crash first, fix later, and it’s failing us. And at Mars, we’re working with Congress and with state and federal agencies to change that, to let Dots and Highway safety offices actually use some of these predictive analytics in their programs and to fund it in ways that are transparent, auditable, and scalable.
And then for local leaders and advocates who I think are really the most important voice in this entire discussion, my call to action is simple. Help us move from pilots to policy. When your city tests something that works, whether it’s daylighting or protected intersection, telematics based informant, do not let it die.
As a pilot, let’s push to make it permanent. Let’s push your state and federal partners to fund it that way, and let’s make sure those stories make their way to Congress.

Jeff Wood: Awesome.

Jeff Wood: Well, Andrew, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate your time.

Andrew Rogers:  Thanks so much, Jeff.