Road Safety – Annual Report 2014
Road crashes in 2012:
Motor vehicle crashes and fatalities in 2012 increased after six consecutive years of declining fatalities on the US nation’s highways. The nation lost 33 561 people in crashes on roadways during 2012,
compared to 32 479 in 2011. The increase in crashes, and the resulting fatalities and injuries, can be seen across many crash characteristics – vehicle type, alcohol impairment, location of crash, etc. – and does not seem to be associated with any one particular issue. In fact, crashes associated with some traditional risk factors, fell in 2012. For example, young drivers involved in fatal crashes
continued to decline, as they have since 2005. Despite the general downward trend in overall fatalities in recent years, pedestrian and motorcycle fatalities have shown an upward trend. This was
again the case in 2012, as motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities increased by six percent each.
Provisional data for 2013:
A statistical projection of traffic fatalities for the first nine months of 2013 shows that an estimated 24 270 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents a decrease of about 3.7 per cent
as compared to the 25 214 fatalities that were reported to have occurred in the first nine months of 2012.
Preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows that vehicle miles travelled (VMT) in the first nine months of 2013 increased by about 9.8 billion miles, an increase of
approximately 0.4 per cent.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is continuing to gather data on crash fatalities for 2012 and 2013 using information from police accident reports and other sources. While it is too soon
to speculate on the contributing factors or potential implications of any changes in deaths on our roadways, it should be noted that the historic downward trend in traffic fatalities in the past several
years means any comparison will be to an unprecedented low baseline figure.
Source: http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/
