The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration predicts that 2021 will be the worst year for traffic deaths since 2005, with an increase of 10.5%, according to the most recent data released on Tuesday. NHTSA estimated 42,915 traffic deaths on US roads in 2021, one year limit set a record in the first quarter, the first half and into Q3.
Traffic deaths have increased for the third year in a row. Preliminary figures will be the highest death toll since 2005, when 43,443 people were killed in traffic accidents. The 10.5% annual increase is also believed to be the highest increase since the Mortality Analysis Reporting System began in 1975.
All 10 NHTSA regions saw an increase in road deaths. Only six states managed to reduce the number of deaths on their roads; Another 44 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, spiked in 2020. Nor were one or two types of accidents to blame. Multi-vehicle crash and urban road crashes both increased 16%, daytime crash deaths, among the elderly over 65, involve pedestrians and involve at least one person big truck both increased by more than 10%.
Compared to those cases, crashes involving alcohol and being reported to the police “only” recorded 5% of crashes, as well as speed-related crashes.
Agency does not cite related to pandemic bad driving behavior as it did in 2020, when drivers travel fewer miles but more people die. The findings noted a continued decline in seat belt use as one of the culprits. NHTSA has just launched a Click It or Ticket campaign to raise seat belt awareness. Another culprit is that more people spend more time on the road; The data shows that road users walked about 325 billion more miles last year compared to 2020, for a total of 3.23 trillion miles, an increase of 11.2%.
Several programs included in the bipartisan Infrastructure Law are being rolled out to improve road safety, one of which is the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which plans to spend $5 billion dollars over 5 years for local efforts to reduce traffic accidents and deaths, as announced Second by Transport Minister Pete Buttigieg.
Initiatives belonging to NHSTA’s Safety Systems Approachdescribed as “a data-driven, comprehensive, and equitable approach to road safety that fully integrates the needs of all users, predicts the likelihood of driver error, and other road users, while managing impact forces to a level that can be tolerated by the human body The Safe Systems Approach includes five elements: safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads and post-collision care.”
When it starts to bear fruit, some local roads may look a little different than they do now. The Federal Highway Administration “Examples include physically separating people traveling at different speeds, providing dedicated time for different users to move through a space, and alerting users to hazards and other road users.”
