America’s streets may be safer, but mind those country roads

by Christopher Elliott on August 4, 2009

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The government has some good news for you: The number of traffic fatalities is at its lowest level since 1961. Injuries are down, too.

That’s according to a new report (PDF) from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The bad news — and calling it that may be a stretch — is that not all roads are equally safer.

But let’s stay positive for a moment. Here’s the takeaway from the report:

There was a 9.7 percent decline in the number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States, from 41,259 in 2007 to 37,261, according to NHTSA’s 2008 Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

This decline of 3,998 fatalities is the largest annual reduction in terms of both number and percentage since 1982.

More than 90 percent of this reduction was in passenger vehicles, which make up over 90 percent of the fleet of registered vehicles.

Passenger car occupant fatalities declined for the sixth consecutive year, and are at their lowest level since NHTSA began collecting fatality crash data in 1975.

The injury stats are also encouraging (see chart at the top of this post).

In 2008, an estimated 2.35 million people were injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes, compared to 2.49 million in 2007.

The estimated number of people injured in crashes is at its lowest point since NHTSA began collecting injury data in 1988.

This constitutes the ninth consecutive yearly reduction in people injured.

But back to highway deaths. A breakdown of the data reveals that city drivers were bigger beneficiaries of this trend than their country cousins.
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In other words, the declines were about a percentage point greater for urban drivers, and the number of fatalities were less. And how about that “unknown” category? Depending on where those accidents fit in, they could skew the numbers one way or the other. (Where’s an unknown road, anyway? The only time I’ve ever seen one is on my navigation system.)

This report has been overshadowed by allegations that NHTSA withheld the results of a survey that suggested multitasking and driving were dangerous. Which is too bad. The government, and to some extent, car manufacturers, deserve some credit for making travel safer for everyone.

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Tagged as: NHTSA, road, safety

  • laura

    Based on my law enforcement expereince, I’m guessing ‘unknown’ is a catchall term for all situations not easily classified in the other two – probably including private roads/private property (shopping center parking lots, etc.) uncharted roads (dirt roads in parks, undeveloped areas) and the like. Notice the heading does not actually conmfine the statisitics to roads, but is attempting to catagorize by ‘land use.’

    NHTSA records all deaths and fatalities involving vehicles, and has to account for those that occur in places other than actual roads, even driveways and service stations (we had a fatalitiy locally when a mechanic drove over another mechanic).

    As an aside, because those types of environments are not controlled by traffic signalling devices, signs, lane markers, speed limits, or even common sense in some cases, accidents are a lot more likely to occur there.

  • Jonathan

    What accounts for the overall improvement in safety? Safety features of the vehicles would seem the most likely reason (larger fraction of vehicles on the road are equipped with airbags, etc). I doubt people’s driving habits on average have changed much, with the possible exception of people getting more and more used to wearing their seat belts.

    As for the stronger decrease in urban traffic fatalities, is this because urban roads are somehow getting safer or might there have been a decline in the number of urban miles driven? After all, with gas prices of the past couple of years, maybe more and more urban drivers have been turning to mass transit or car pools for their commutes…

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