Comparatively, and notwithstanding that there were an estimated 710 fatalities from car accidents and other vehicle crashes in Louisiana in 2010, there's not much to dislike regarding the conclusions of a recent national survey on highway safety in the United States.

The survey -- entitled the 2012 Roadmap to State Highway Safety Laws -- is the ninth annual report put out by an organization called Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (AHAS). The group is a broad coalition of entities with a mandate to "work together to advance state and federal highway and vehicle safety laws, programs and policies."

Overall, AHAS likes what it sees in Louisiana, although it does suggest steps for improvement in certain areas. The organization ranks states on whether they have adopted 15 basic traffic safety laws, and it also scrutinizes their efforts toward improvement.

It then ranks them by assigning them a color code that is based, unsurprisingly, on a traffic signal. In other words, a strong scorre commands a green rating; a caution/questionable score earns a yellow; and a dismal effort comes up red.

Louisiana, along with 16 other states, qualifies for a green rating.

Among the laws looked at by AHAS are those relating to seat belt use, booster seats, motorcycle helmet requirements, drunk driving laws and graduated licensing programs for teen drivers.

The organization does suggest that Louisiana get just a bit more stringent with the latter, recommending that it up its minimum age for obtaining a learner's permit from 15 to 16 and that it also impose stronger nighttime restrictions on drivers with an intermediary license.

Source: Sacramento Bee, "2012 Roadmap to State Highway Safety Laws shows fiscal impact of highway safety gaps" Jan. 11, 2012