2016 Traffic Death Stats Continue Rise
CARS.COM — Traffic fatalities through the first nine months of 2016 were up 8 percent from the same period in 2015 to 27,875 people killed according to data released today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The toll continues the rise seen in 2015 of deaths up 7.2 percent from 2014 to 35,092 after years of mostly declines. Since 2006, only 2012 also showed an increase (4 percent). NHTSA has reported previously that major drivers of the 2015 increase were more fatal pedestrian, motorcycle and bicycle crashes.
Related: Which States Had the Biggest, Smallest Increases in 2015 Traffic Deaths?
The 2016 increase has outpaced a federal estimate that people traveled about 3 percent more miles in the period, meaning that the 2016 rate of fatalities per miles traveled also rose to 1.15 deaths per 100 million miles from 1.10 for the same period in 2015; a projection for the full 2016 toll will be released in March. Overall, the nation’s roads, however, remain significantly safer than in the past: Some 44,525 people died in crashes in 1975, a rate of 3.35 per 100 million miles traveled.
By region, the greatest death increase was in the New England states, up 20 percent from the same period in 2015, followed by the Southeast, up 15 percent. The lower Midwest and Southwest also saw double-digit increases. The lowest increase was in the region made up of Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming (up 1 percent), followed by the region including New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania (up 2 percent).
NHTSA Drives for Zero Fatalities
The new fatality data was released in conjunction with a NHTSA briefing on progress on research in its project to reach zero fatalities within the next 30 years. The increases in fatalities led the Department of Transportation to create a Road to Zero Coalition with safety groups in October and to invite researchers and safety groups outside the government to analyze NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System data and correlate it with other available databases. The goal is to harness the skills and data collected by others — such as location and demographic information — and then to expand and analyze the government data with the aim of pinpointing fatality causes. Among those speaking at the briefing were private sector data analysis providers, nonprofit safety groups and New York University.
For example, past increases in fatalities have followed an economic upturn as more people hit the road. Outgoing NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind, who sat in the briefing, commented that simply making that connection is not enough to be helpful and that research needs to analyze who is driving more and why to point to solutions.
One of the groups driving more is teens, according to research presented by Matt Moore, a vice president at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. An IIHS study found a high correlation in the growth of insured teen drivers with lower teen unemployment, which he pointed out hit 25 percent in the recession. “Unemployment is a big factor in teen driving,” he said.
Another study, presented by Brian Tefft of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, looked at the role of drug use, particularly marijuana, in fatalities in Washington, one of the few states providing toxicology data with its FARS reports. It tests drivers of about 60 percent of fatal crashes.
The AAA found that drivers testing positive for THC and other indicators of marijuana use doubled from 2013 to 2014. The state’s fatalities rose in that time from 436 to 462, even as fatal crashes not involving THC went down and there also was a small decrease in crashes involving alcohol. AAA is recommending that all states’ FARS data be linked with toxicology results to better study this.
