Seeking to improve what has been among the nation’s grimmest public policy challenges, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg released a plan Thursday with the goal of reducing, and eventually eliminating, tens of thousands of annual road deaths.

The Transportation Department strategy calls for following a “safe system” approach that emphasizes the inevitability of human mistakes and the need for planning to minimize their impacts on everyone who uses roads. The efforts come amid new safety spending in the infrastructure law President Biden signed in November…

The strategy lays out steps the department will take over three years in five categories: safer people, roads, vehicles and speeds, and improving post-crash care. It calls for tying together the work of transportation agencies that oversee highways, trucking, and driver and car safety, while appealing for the private sector and state and local governments to support a no-fatalities goal.