Since 1899, the Federal Government has been keeping records and statistics on motor vehicle accidents and fatalities. A spike in traffic fatalities in the 1960’s led to the creation of the National Highway Traffic Safetly Administration (NHTSA) in 1970. Numerous occupant and vehicle safety standards have been enacted since, and as a result, there has been a general decline of traffic deaths since 1972. That decline has not been without peaks and valleys, but the trend continues downward. In 2008, fatalities among young drivers (16-24) dropped to it’s lowest point since 1982.
Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), who began operating in 1975, shows the biggest factor for fatal crashes from 2005 to 2009 is Failure to keep in proper lane… nearly 30% for most of that time period. Failure to keep in proper lane, however, is a pretty wide brush, in which many factors could cause it. The other top five causes usually involve alcohol and/or drugs, distraction (eating, texting, talking, etc.), and speeding. Advancing technology has brought with it the emergence of some of those newer factors, such as texting-while-driving and DVD screens built into dashboards and sun visors.
As a rapidly growing cause of accidents in nearly every age range that‘s still very hard to prove, accurate numbers regarding texting-while-driving are hard to find, although it’s generally considered to be a leading cause in vehicle accidents today, fatal and otherwise. A study by the Virginia Tech Tranportaion Institute showed that the average driver frequently takes their eyes off the road while texting for up to five seconds… long enough to travel the length of a football field. Reaction times and stopping distances have also been proven to double when a driver is texting while driving. That is way over the typical distance of a few feet added when a driver is legally drunk. Often they’re too distracted to hit the brakes at all.
The large percentage related to the statistic of Failure to keep in proper lane could be attributed to the limited ability to determine and/or prove the cause of the driver leaving their travel lane in most accidents for many of those years. Those percentages dropped considerably between 2008 and 2009 from over 24% to exactly 17%, accompanied by a slight increase in other causes, indicating the improved ability to identify the proper factors in a larger number of cases.
Another factor considered in accidents is the time and day they occur. Statistically, the most dangerous time to be out driving is from midnight to 3 a.m., Saturday and Sunday mornings. That could be considered common sense, with the common activities of drinking and otherwise on Friday and Saturday nights out. A scary thought is to combine that with the increasing chance that some of those people who are driving after having a few drinks are also trying to text each other. Safe practice, if driving must be done at those times, is to take roads less traveled where possible… where distance can be maintained from other vehicles and problem drivers may be more easily spotted and given a wide berth.
The percentage of fatalities related to a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) over .01 remained consistent over the same period of time, toggling between 37 and 38 percent, although the numbers themselves declined from nearly 16,000 to just over 12,700, reflecting the declining number of fatal crashes overall.
Another way to look at traffic fatalities is in deaths-per-distance a vehicle travels. The number of fatalities for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has declined steadily from 1.46 to 1.13. Those numbers appear small in that statistic considering how large the VMT number is. But looking at fatalities per 100,000 population puts it in better perspective: 14.71 in 2005, down to 11.01 in 2009... That’s one death per every 9083 people on the road.
Legislation such as minimum-drinking-age laws and testing standards have helped, but a large factor to this downward trend in traffic fatalities can be attributed to the advances that vehicle manufacturers have made in safety and technology. Anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, airbags, and improved restraint systems (especially for children) have saved many lives. Many of the safety improvements in passenger cars were adapted from the changes NASCAR mandated in the first couple of years following the on-track death of iconic racecar driver Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500 of February, 2001. Improved motorcycle helmets and riding gear have increased survival chances for motorcyclists as well.
The addition of bicycle lanes on streets across the country have helped the grim statistics of fatalities among bicycle riders. That number as well has declined from 757 fatalities in 2005 to 600 in 2009. The most frightening statistic for bicyclists? There is less than a 10% chance of survival when struck from the front, as opposed to over 90% survival rate in being hit from any other direction. The lesson there is to always ride with traffic on the proper side of the road as opposed to traveling against it on the other side.
Overall drop in traffic fatalities in the United States from 2008 to 2009 is -10%. Connecticut showed the largest percentage at -26%, with Nevada in a close second at -25%. The numbers involved were also close… 302 down to 223 and 324 down to 243 respectably. In contrast, North Dakota and Rhode Island showed the worst changes in percentage, up 35% and 28%, although the numbers involved (223 up from 169 combined), were less than Connecticut or Nevada alone.
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