In its recent press statement posted last December 10, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released a new data analysis on the occurrences of highway traffic deaths and injuries in the country.
In what seemed to be a great development in the state of traffic safety in the U.S., the NHTSA’s analysis indicated that the total death toll in motor vehicle accidents for the year 2011 dropped to just 32,367. The figure was a 1.9 percent decrease from the previous year, when the NHTSA tallied 32,999 crash deaths.
More importantly, the 2011 number was, in all, a 26 percent decline in traffic deaths since 2005, and was the lowest since 1949. This data is significant enough to prove that there is a continuing downward trend happening in terms of traffic deaths, not to mention the number of accidents that occurred in the country.
Highlights of the new NHTSA’s data analysis
Aside from the traffic deaths, there was also a significant decline in the number of fatal crashes and the number of injuries in 2011. According to NHTSA’s data, the number of fatal crashes dropped to 29,757. It was a 1.8 percent decrease from the previous year, which stood at 30,296 in 2010.
Similarly, the same can be said on the non-fatal crashes, as well as the recorded number of injuries for 2011. In the latest analysis, there were 5,308,000 non-fatal crashes in the United States, which resulted in 2,217,000 injuries.
Another key highlight of the NHTSA’s 2011 data analysis is on the aspect of distracted driving. Apparently, fatalities in distraction-related crashes were up by 1.9 percent: from 3,267 in 2010 to 3,331 in 2011. Conversely, injuries as a result of these crashes decreased by 7 percent: from an estimated 416,000 in 2010 to around 387,000 in 2011.
What these stats mean
The NHTSA statistics for 2011 only goes to show the tireless work that the agency is doing to promote safety on the road and to take on certain issues such as distracted driving, driving under the influence, and the use of safety belts.
With these improvements, it can be said that U.S. motorists today are now smarter and behave more appropriately than ever before. This is because a lot of road safety campaigns from the NHTSA and other traffic safety agencies that are continually being implemented in recent years have been proven to be effective and have played major roles in promoting safety on the roads.
Meanwhile, a Los Angeles car accident attorney thinks that to sustain the downward trend in traffic accidents, motorists must be able to exercise safety while behind the wheel at all times.
