Using Technology, Data & AI to Improve Traffic Safety: Insights from The 2025 World Traffic Safety Symposium 

I covered the World Traffic Safety Symposium at the New York International Auto Show this past April. The symposium focused on using data and AI to reduce pedestrian fatalities and to make roads and cars safer.

Mark Scheinberg, President of the Greater New York Automotive Dealers Association and the New York International Auto Show, opened the symposium. 

Guest Speakers included:

Mark F. Schroeder, Commissioner, NYS DMV, Governor’s Representative for Highway Safety, Richard Martinez, Former NHTSA Administrator and current Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, Garret Eucalitto Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, Eric Teoh Director of Statistical Services Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS , Tara Andringa, Executive Director at PAVE , Jon Baldwin, EVP of Government Solutions a Verra Mobility, Jonathan Miller, VP Enterprise Growth at Nexar Inc., and Zach Rash, Co-Founder and CEO of COCO, and many others.

Mark shared his commitment to road safety in New York State. He described the various task forces working to make roads safer for drivers and pedestrians. I was shocked to learn about the 20 percent pedestrian death rate on roads. 

Richard Martinez, Former NHTSA Administrator and current Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, shared some interesting findings about enhancing vehicle and road safety through data and AI. 

He shared that unintentional motor vehicle traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. For example, in 5 to 14-year-olds and 15 to 24-year-olds, it is the leading cause of death. In 1 to 4 year olds, 25 to 34 year olds, 35 to 44 year olds, 45 to 54 year olds, 55 to 64, and 65+, it is the second leading cause of death, with all ages ranking third in under one year of age. Overall, unintentional traffic accidents rank as the third leading cause of death across all groups. 

This data suggests that motor vehicle accidents are a serious issue. I was shocked to see how motor vehicle crashes are. 

Richard shared a way to improve road safety, achieving a vision zero through a safe system approach. Safe system elements include safer people, safe roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and enhanced survivability post-crash care. The creation of a safe environment for first responders to prevent secondary crashes through robust traffic incident management practices.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine presented critical findings in their report Tackling the Road Safety Crisis.

Critical Findings

Challenges

Opportunities

The goal is to go from Reactive to proactive to Predictive to reduce crashes.

The Connecticut DOT commissioner shared the challenges in AI. 

Eric Teoh, Director of Statistical Services Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS shared that motor vehicle crashes are down over the past 50 years, but motor vehicle crash fatalities are up 30 percent. 

The goal is to go from Reactive to proactive to Predictive to reduce crashes.

Tara Andringa, Executive Director at PAVE, shared some interesting research about whether people would ride in an autonomous vehicle. Taxi and/or ride share, 48 % said that they would not. However, the poll found that 60 percent said that they would trust AVs if they understood the technology. 58 percent said that they would have greater trust in AVs if they could take a ride. PAVE educates the public showing demystifying technology and highlighting different ways AVs might be used. 

In a panel discussion on the safety of Urban Mobility Safety Technology,

Jon Baldwin, EVP of Government Solutions a Verra Mobility, Jonathan Miller, VP Enterprise Growth at Nexar Inc., and Zach Rash, Co-Founder and CEO of COCO, shared how their companies’ offerings use Technology, AI, and Data to make urban mobility safer. Verra Mobility offers Automated Enforcement. Nexar offers Smart Dash Cameras that can be used in multiple applications and a robust Data platform, COCO offers autonomous delivery vehicles with mapping technology. They provided Cookies in one of their autonomous delivery vehicles, demonstrating the technology. 

The 2025 World Traffic Safety Symposium highlighted issues, insights, and solutions to improve traffic safety. 

I learned a great deal.

Thank you to the New York International Auto Show and the Greater New York Automobile Association for allowing me to cover this event.

Last week, I covered the Search Marketing Expo in New York City. Search Marketing Expo has is a great event for SEO, SEM, and Digital Marketing professionals. SMX provides attendees with an opportunity to learn actionable techniques in conference sessions and training workshops. Google and Microsoft provided seminars on various SEM topics.

Here is a video of the event.

I enjoyed Moz founder Rand Fishkin’s keynote.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. Organic traffic has reached its peak and will decline.
2. To keep traffic coming to their sites, Marketers will need to find ways to nudge consumers as Zero click queries continue to grow.
3. Organizations need to shift their investments in product, content, and brand. Decisions on how to redeploy these resources need to be a company-wide effort. 

Here is the link to the presentation.

Google in 2020: From Everyone’s Search Engine to Everyone’s Competitor | SparkToro
I’ve written a lot this year about the shifts we’re seeing from Google — moving from search engine to answer to engine…sparktoro.com

At the end of the keynote, I met Rand and received a signed copy of his new book entitled Lost and Found.

In Google’s Keynote, I learned how businesses can get an edge during the holidays. I also learned of Google’s plan to use Google Images and YouTube for eCommerce. Google is also allowing businesses to use location-based Ads in Google Maps.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. According to Google most shopping visits start online.

2.When diners search for a great place to eat the searches are probably happening on a smartphone.

3.  When people are online in cars, more than half of them are searching for information on a mobile device making localization and targeting important.

4. . 2/3′s of shoppers say that online video has given them insight and inspiration to make purchases.

5. Shoppers use at least 3 channels or more when shopping.

6. Brands need to provide an omnichannel channel experience all year, especially during the holidays.

7. Sales are happening online and offline. As a result of this shift, Brands need to serve customers on the channels of their choice.

Sales processes include the following: customer development,   prospecting, discovery calls, closing deals, cross-selling, upselling, post-sales implementation, customer experience, obtaining referrals, and testimonials.

What is the hardest part of the sales process?

I surveyed my LinkedIn audience to find out.

Survey Results

Of those surveyed, 53 % said closing deals was the hardest part of the Sales Process, followed by understanding market fit at 22%, Calling on buyers, and knowing their needs at 19% with the lowest being cross-selling, referrals, testimonials, or other reasons at 6%.

Based on these findings, I have included nine ways to enable sales teams to close more deals.

9 Strategies to Empower and Enable Sales Teams to Make more Sales

1.Have Sales and Marketing Management discuss Sales Cycle mapping out Sales, Marketing, and the Customer Journey.

2. Have Marketing go with Sales on calls to observe customer interactions regularly.

3. Take notes from Sales calls to develop answers to customer objections.

4. Role play with the Sales to get better at objection handling.

5. Develop an on-demand LMS for Sales including Decks, Videos, Sales Training materials, Product training materials, Scripts, and FAQs.

6. Use feedback from Sales calls and objections to improve Sales and Marketing Collateral.

7. Assign readings on sales strategy and techniques.

8. Conduct market research to show how is your products and services are better than the competitor. Present market research creating a chart that Sales can refer to when dealing with customers.

9. Develop buyer personas to understand customer buying motives. Share the buyer personas with Sales.

What is the hardest part of the sales process?

How did you fix your sales process?

Share your thoughts.