DETROIT— Accident deaths on U.S. highways fell 3.6% last year, but nearly 41,000 people still lost their lives on the nation’s roads, according to full-year estimates from safety regulators.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicated that it was the second consecutive year in which fatalities decreased. The agency also released final figures for 2022 on Monday, saying 42,514 people died in road incidents.
NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said deaths in traffic incidents decreased in the fourth quarter of last year, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline beginning with the second quarter of 2022.
“Put your phone away or pay”
The decline occurs even though people drive more. Estimates from the Federal Highway Administration show that Americans drove 67.5 billion more miles last year than the previous year, up 2.1%. The death rate per 100 million kilometers driven fell to 1.26 last year, down from 1.33 in 2022, according to NHTSA.
Authorities have said that even with a decline, the death toll is still too high. Shulman attributed the problem in part to the fact that people drive distracted. In 2022, an estimated 3,308 people were killed in crashes involving distracted drivers, while 289,310 were injured.
Almost 20% of those killed in road incidents resulting from distracted driving were people other than the vehicles, including pedestrians, cyclists and others, he indicated.
“Distracted driving is extremely dangerous,” he said when inaugurating a new campaign against this behavior called “Put your phone away or pay”. The agency will begin an advertising campaign this month, and law enforcement will crack down on this behavior in a campaign from April 4 to 8.
Road incidents
Deaths from road incidents skyrocketed in 2021 with an increase of 10.5% compared to 2020, as people began to drive more as the COVID-19 pandemic began to subside. It was the highest figure since 2005 and the largest percentage increase since 1975.
At the time, authorities attributed the increase to speeding and more reckless behavior, as well as distracted driving.
Part of the increase in deaths in road incidents was then due to people driving more as the coronavirus pandemic subsided. NHTSA reported that the rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled increased 2.2% to 1.37 in 2021.
Source: AP
