Sean Duffy to States: ‘Roads are for Safety, Not Politics’
Thank goodness.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked all governors to participate in the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Safe Arterials for Everyone through Reliable Operations and Distraction-Reducing Strategies—SAFE ROADS—initiative.
Over half of roadway deaths occur on these non-freeway roads.
Duffy told the governors that 39,345 people died on these roads in 2024. That’s a decrease of 3.8% from 2024, but still unacceptable.
🚨EXCLUSIVE
Transportation @SecDuffy sends a letter to all 50 states (plus DC & Puerto Rico) urging them to prioritize safety over political statements.
LGBTQ crosswalks must go, the letter says.
Yes, there are dozens of rainbow crosswalks😲https://t.co/eNFomdm1In pic.twitter.com/WMyKPt7hk6
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) July 1, 2025
“Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork. Today I am calling on governors in every state to ensure that roadways, intersections, and crosswalks are kept free of distractions,” said Duffy. “Far too many Americans die each year to traffic fatalities to take our eye off the ball. USDOT stands ready to help communities across the country make their roads safer and easier to navigate.”
No more rainbow walkways. No more BLM messages. Nothing.
Duffy requested each state’s department of transportation provide him with its “metropolitan planning organizations, use available safety data, analysis, and assessments to develop a list of arterial segments, including intersections, with the highest safety, operational, or compliance concerns that will be addressed by the end of Fiscal Year 2026” within 60 days.
The goals include:
In 2020, then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio helped activists paint Black Lives Matter on 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower.
Then in 2024, Washington teenagers faced felony charges for supposedly vandalizing an LGBT/transgender mural on a road.
I so hope the governors participate. I doubt Illinois, California, and New York will, though.
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Comments
Roads are for travel, not safety. Blocking a public way is taken as fighting words, in Ohio.
SAFE travel and you can’t have that if you have Democrats using those roads for non-safe travel activities like protesting, rioting or woke advertising.
“I so hope the governors participate. I doubt Illinois, California, and New York will, though.”
Which is why this is toothless.
Unless they can tie highway funds to compliance.
I think they did for 55 mph during Carter. However, for painting the roads, it seems a bit extreme.
Nothing is extreme when dealing with extremists.
If states want to put messages on roadways, then they can pay for those roads from their state coffers.
Don’t disagree enuf to downvote – but don’t totally agree either. Billboards do occasionally distract drivers enuf to cause an accident – don’t see why crosswalk “billboards” wouldn’t too.
Yet don’t want billboards (of either variety above) banned. Libertarian and Capitalist enuf not to want to interfere with that type of advertising wether it be for business or political reasons – short of ones that are distracting or gaudy enuf to cause epileptic seizures or really really cause accidents. And don’t really mind the occasional instance of sidewalk or road chalk artwork. Permanent paint does strike me as too distracting.
What (imho) SHOULD be addressed is the idea fixee The Left has that sidewalk or road “art” is or should be some sort of permanent installation – or that “messing” with same is a criminal offense – but only if the message was a Lefty one.
Goose, Gander, if it’s Free Speech to burn a US (or Israeli) flag then it should also be Free Speech if a kid does wheelies on a Gay Pride flag crosswalk.
@BobM
I agree enough with you to upvote.
The point I am making, and you alluded to, is using roads for art, especially for liberal causes, at the expense of the taxpayer.
That, to me, is different than billboards and other advertising, because the taxpayer isn’t paying for those.
There are more distractions than road art and billboards. There are idiot drivers texting while driving, putting on make up while moving at high speeds, road head, and others. We can’t save everyone from their stupidity or that of others.
But we don’t have to pay for it out of taxes.
I think that’s right but it is important for states to be consistent with not only painting on roadways but signage. Everyone needs to be able to understand traffic laws, signs etc no matter the state they are going through.
Safety is “extreme?”
The feds impose all manner of regulations regarding road signage and markings. If a State is receiving federal funds for their roads (and I’m not aware of one that isn’t), they must abide by all regulations.
For instance, federal funds were used in the improvement of a rail-to-trial conversion here in WA State. Two bollards were placed at street intersections to prevent motorized vehicles from driving onto the trail. Someone complained they weren’t compliant – the number of bollards at those positions is supposed to be odd, and 2 is even. So the State had to pull up all the bollards and replace them with one or three (depending on the width of the trail) everywhere there had been two.
The feds have a myriad of regulations concerning cross walks, traffic lights, signage, including size, width, colors, suitable paints, etc. And they’re generally able to enforce the rules, although it often takes a complaint to point out the infraction.
There is actually an international treaty on road signage and traffic lights. No matter where you go the signs look pretty much the same in shape and color. If you go to Quebec for example you may not know “Arrete” means stop but you know what that red octagon means.
Meh, just get the Feds out of most of the surface transportation game, end federal involvement for all but interstate highways. End federal funding for buses, trams, trolley, Amtrak, other rail boondoggles, subways, bridges, tunnels. Just interstates. They can cut federal fuel taxes down to the revenue needed to accomplish the narrow mission and the States/County and Municipal gov’t can figure out how to pay for their own projects.
You have to decide who to tax, and logically it should be people in proportion to how much they benefit, because that’s what they’d vote for. I.e. no net loss for the project for anybody. That’s hard to do. The alternative is a very broad tax that’s not particularly noticeable with respect to this project, sort of in proportion to a “who knows maybe you’ll once or twice benefit from this” level of cost.
I think that is part of the argument for a mileage tax. Paying a certain amount of tax like a road tax that commercial vehicles pay and using that money to pay for roads. As it is now, bikes and electric vehicles get off scot free because states collect a fuel tax for the roads. If you use the road you should pay something for it.
All vehicles should pay a mileage tax. When you go in for your inspection the mileage is written down. The next year it’s taken in and your given a bill for the amount you drive. If your using a bike then the bikes should be registered to use the roadway and the fee goes into the pot to pay for the roads. The problem is that the money generated by fuel taxes is so large no state want’s to mess with it. If the left manages to end ICE vehicles they are going to have to sooner or later and it won’t be pretty.
diver64:
If there is going to be a mileage tax, just exactly how would it be enforced? Mandatory inspections of your odometer?
But far more to the point, if we’re going to pretend that the miles that a vehicle puts on roadways has to do with repair and maintenance of the roads, then you’ll absolutely be required to also include vehicle weight, since that is essentially the ONLY factor in how a vehicle causes damage to a roadway (go talk to a civil engineer). Lightweight cars would pay almost nothing, while ginormous SUV’s and pick-ups (hey, I just carried a half-yard of crushed rock in mine) would pay much higher per-mile fees. Semi-trucks would of course become utterly unaffordable to operate since they are essentially the only vehicles that actually pound the pavements to oblivion.
Since this would eliminate the trucking industry rather completely I don’t see this happening. Personally I like eating and consuming the goods that only trucks can deliver.
And just as a side note, EV’s a disproportionately heavy for their size (humongous battery packs) and would pay twice as much per mile as gas vehicles. It would be fun to watch the effect of a weight/mileage tax just for the entertainment value. Not enough fun to actually implement one, of course.
I thought all states required a yearly inspection before registration renewal? The few I’ve lived in do. You can’t renew the registration until an inspection is done. When it is done it’s automatically updated to the DMV and then you can pay to get the sticker.
For the states that don’t have inspections they could require you to stop at a site once a year and have the mileage recorded then you get a bill in the mail. No idea if that would work. Some states want computers on cars so the state can automatically download via cell or satellite your mileage. I’m not a fan of that type of tracking.
You are not up o date on he current development of large trucks. When is the last time you did much counting of wheels? The days of the old “eighteen wheeler’ are all bu gone. Used to be two tyres on the steering axle, 8 more on the drive axle, then another eight on the trailer. I have lately seen as many as 32 on a tror and single trailer combined. Thus the weight per square unit of tire contact area has dropped to near half, Mind, as well, there are brakes on every axle, nearly doubling the braking power compared to what we had 40 years ago. I know, I used to drive big rigs. I still watch them.
Trucks are also far more efficient at moving goods. When one driver and one power unit can move 125,000 pounds at 60 mph with a fuel usage of 8 miles per gallon instead of the former 80,000 at 7.5 mpg less fuel is burned per delivered pound.
Of course, the cost of that truck tractor has gone from about $45K to near $150K, we lose there, s those dollars earned have to also pay for the insane cost of the new rigs… plus the blue horse pee now mandated, and the ten times more frequent roadside breakdowns because of the stupid computer systems to make the truck run.
I ran a twenty year old $5,000 Kenworth about 200K miles in two years, total maintenance cost around $500, most of that replacing the old tyres that were on it. Two unscheduled repairs, no lost time on one, $15 for the part, the other lost two hours and cost $50. Never missed a drop or pickup. Wish I had that truck today, but it is now illegal to run one that old commercially. (anyone ever heard or “ex post facto””?)
The environmental load to replace all those truck tractors every ten years is insane.
And for states that don’t do annual inspections? I can tell you right now I will not volunteer data from my car’s odometer if what they’re going to do is tax me on it.
If it takes the place of the tax at the pump? How many states don’t do inspections? I know here they are pretty lax. Last winter I went to get one on the coldest day of the year and the car was in the bay 5min. I asked why it was so fast and the guy told me the bay was unheated so screw it. lol. Flashers, lights, wipers, horn. Pretty simple stuff.
Why would it be any different than when we fill out a 1040 tax form? IMO one way to avoid direct mileage taxation (which I don’t have a big issue with if it replaced fuel tax) is to apply a much larger tax to the tag/plate by type and weight of vehicle. Have a base rate then a progressively higher amount added based on weight of vehicle. Downside is it would hit low mileage drivers hard.
I want to be clear that I’m not in favor of any type of tracking device on a car although they all have a black box now.
They’ve been talking about this in Mass for at least 10 years. They would do it or talked about doing it by mandatory transponder. I never understood this because we have annual inspections and it could just be done by odometer recording.
I used to be against this because once the MA legislature gets it’s dirty toes into something they will keep jacking up the rate. The other problem is they steal the money and don’t use it for which it is intended – fixing roads and bridges.
However, I’ve changed my mind with all the electric vehicles on the road. They of course don’t pay a gas tax which means theoretically they don’t pay for road upkeep. This needs to change.
The EV’s that are running the roads at gas car’s expense is what I’m thinking of. They should either institute a tax on charging stations similar to the gas tax at the pump or mandate a yearly fee or something. Enough free ride.
Arizona has already approved a first-in-the-nation referendum to amend the state constitution to forbid mileage taxation:
Of course, that is assuming the bulk of one’s driving is limited to just one state. People who live in one state but commute to another for work would have a lot of “fun” with such a tax, not to mention anyone who takes road trips. The only way to get around this situation would be a tracking device in your car for this purpose, and that in turn would open up a whole can of worms.
No thanks.
Commercial trucks do it.
“As it is now, bikes and electric vehicles get off scot free because states collect a fuel tax for the roads. If you use the road you should pay something for it.”
I used to ride with a local bicycle club. Everyone in the club owned a car, most owned property. All paid sales taxes on purchases. Most bike riders do, in fact, pay their share of taxes. And when they ride their bikes to work, or to market, or for other purposes for which others use automobiles, they are putting nearly zero wear on the road surfaces that they paid for, saving the general public money on road maintenance that would be necessary if those bicycling miles were replaced with automobile miles. One reason there is a tax on gas for road maintenance is because those vehicles that burn gas also damage and wear the roads such that their operators have a responsibility to pay to repair the damage, damage not caused by bicycle riders.
Yeah, they’ve paid for it already. (BTW, a new gas tax just went into effect here in WA. For roads? No, to subsidize the State’s low-income tax credit.)
Which is why the local communities that want a tunnel should pay to dig it. Or operate a subway or add bike lanes. Get federal $ out of it. The local gifts and State gov’t can form interstate compacts (with Congressional consent) to accomplish all sorts of projects if they wish. If the States along the ACELA corridor want AMTRAK then let them pay for it.
Interstate highways are a different animal b/c they support truly national goals, objectives v fuzzy tenuous claims that North Dakota or Mississippi somehow benefit from the ‘big dig’ in Boston, the high speed rail debacle in CA or the level and frequency of AMTRAK passenger service routes in the ACELA corridor.
Heck I’d gut TSA tomorrow. Put that responsibility for security screening on the local airport authorities. They can add terminal fees to collect revenue needed to meet the demand directly on the passengers being screened. Gift the equipment to them, hand over the basic operational security minimum standards to retain federal certification to operate and let them figure it out. Give them say until January of 27 to give lead time to figure out a budget, supervision and create a handover plan.
Airports are used for interstate and international travel as are seaports. It’s appropriate for the feds to be responsible for them except for some local airports or harbors perhaps.
Why pretend this is about anything other than scraping liberal iconography off the road? Show me even one death caused by someone distracted by a rainbow crosswalk of all things
I just paid a $500 fine for putting tire marks on a rainbow crosswalk. I had to hit my brakes because a car ran a red light and I had to stop.
So, while killing someone wasn’t an issue, destruction of property is an issue.
.
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OK. I just told a tall tail that wasn’t true, but it would have been if I lived in a liberal paradise.
I flipped off a rainbow and a leprechaun showed up and punched me. I gave as good as I got until he dropped a pot of gold on my head then it was lights out.
Federal regulations require that specific types of paints be used for traffic markings on a road surface. One of the requirements is that the paint provides a certain about of traction, that is that it can’t be so slick that it can create a hazard by increasing stopping distances and potentially causing drivers to lose control of a vehicle. I’d wager that the colorful paints used for gay pride markings on the roads don’t comport with the regulations. Now, if you want to argue to abolish the regulations, be my guest. But the regs exist to promote safety, even if they do so in ways that are not always immediately apparent to people who haven’t dealt with them.
A few years ago, Olympia WA replaced the pavement near a park with a patterned concrete that had some kind of sealant on it to make it look shiny. Shiny it was, and slicker than snot too. They had to remove the sealant. I believe it was replaced with a USDOT-compliant surface treatment.
Certain types of patterned pavement is used in intersections in attempt to get drivers to slow down and not run over pedestrians. I don’t know if it really works or not.
IMO, two major hazards not mentioned are the number of drivers that are actively using and impaired by Pot and the now universal use of computer screens to control automobile functions. Navigation computer screen menus is a major distraction from driving, especially when “stoned”.
I’m old enough to remember the days before everyone had GPS and people would try to read actual maps or handwritten instructions while they drove.
I thought it a bridge too far when lesbian, Massachusetts Governor, Maura Healey, ordered Vaseline to be spread around the entrance to the Sumner Tunnel.
The Sumner Tunnel requires 12 lanes of incoming traffic arriving from three directions to merge into two inside a distance of roughly 0.2 mile. It doesn’t need Vaseline, it needs a giant InSinkErator.
He kinda sorta copped out here.
We all knew that various roads would be given the idiotic rainbow treatment in June.
He should have made the statement BEFORE the month began, not after, when far fewer feathered boas would be ruffled.
I wonder if Duffy is including descansos in his list of distractions. While I find them somewhat irritating, particularly the larger ornate ones designed to attract attention, they are protected by NM law.
Maybe they’re considered a net positive because they remind people that driving is a potentially fatal endeavor.
You might find this of interest.
https://www.bobeckertphotography.com/descansos.html
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