Fatal Crashes Down: Progress Continues
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports the positive news that fewer deaths occurred on our nation's roads in 2011 (NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis, 2012a, 2012b). A lower, but still depressingly high 32,367 people were killed in crashes in 2011. That’s a 1.9% decrease from 2010, and represents the fewest fatalities since 1949. When controlling for population growth and increased vehicle miles driven, the fatality rate is about a third what it was back in the early 1980s.
Drunk driving (or more precisely driving with a BAC=.08+) continues to account for a large proportion of the fatal crashes. But those too declined by 2.5% and now account for 31% of the deaths.
Here are a few important national statics from the report:
Read More