• Next Wednesday is the early bird registration deadline, and your last chance to register before the fees increase on November 21. And save time onsite! U.S. and Canadian registrants with accounts paid in full by November 20 will have the option to have their badge mailed to them before the meeting. 
• Participate in the Career Fair on the Sunday of the Annual Meeting. Employers: reserve your table today!
• A reminder, TRB does not sell email addresses of volunteers or Annual Meeting attendees. If you receive a solicitation to purchase a mailing list of volunteers or TRB Annual Meeting attendees, consider it inaccurate.

Over the past decade, America’s roads have been getting more dangerous. The rate of fatal crashes per mile traveled has been climbing, and crashes involving vulnerable road users — such as pedestrians and bicyclists — have grown the fastest. Last year, an estimated 40,990 people lost their lives in traffic crashes in the U.S., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These developments are alarming, especially given that road safety has been improving in many other high-income nations. A new National Academies feature article digs into the issue, which was the focus of a recent TRB consensus report.

Get involved with the TRB Standing Technical Committee on Native American Transportation Issues during Native American Heritage Month. Manny James of Iteris, Inc. and a member of the committee, says, “Growing up on a reservation I endured the struggles of commuting in Navajo land - I held on to that experience and in graduate school I wrote a safety paper on Arizona tribal roads."

Traditionally, roads were inspected by hand to identify problems like cracks and potholes. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping us do this job faster and more accurately. AI can analyze images of roads and automatically spot these problems. This helps transportation departments fix roads more efficiently and save money. NCHRP Synthesis 636: AI Applications for Automatic Pavement Condition Evaluation, released this past week from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, explores how different states are using AI to improve road inspections. This information can help us develop even better AI tools for road maintenance. To explore further, the National Academies has a rich collection of AI research.

Benjamin Arras (pictured) is an engineering assistant in the Flexible Pavement Section of the Materials and Tests Division of the Texas Department of Transportation. He participated in TRB's Minority Student Fellows Program, which, he says, "was an honor that underscored my commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion in the transportation profession." Read more of Arras' story on page 39 of the latest issue of TR News 351, TRB's quarterly magazine.

November 12 - National Academies/TRB Report Release Webinar – Long Freight Trains: Ensuring Safe Operations, Mitigating Adverse Impacts

We just honored Veterans Day, and TRB has a lot of practical examples and research to benefit the veterans in your community.