Today, a rare place of good news: For the second consecutive year, American roads got a little safer. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a preliminary estimate of road deaths in 2024. 39,345 people lost their lives, a decrease of 3.8 percent from 40,901 deaths on US roads in 2023.
The problem started with pandemic disease. Although road traffic dried up, The mortality rate increased by 20 %.
There is no reason for this, and studies have identified numerous co -operation factors: empty roads Practically designed to encourage the faster paceLittle for the implementation of traffic laws by police, in view of public health restrictions, generally a sense of fatality that some Americans have ever considered in recent days, and car companies are making large trucks and SUVs with high poles. Too much fatal for pedestrians And other weak road users in the accident.
In 2024, the total mortality of the road was also seen, lowering from 42,721 to 40,901 in 2022 to 40,901. The NHTSA has completed its last analysis of fatal accidents in 2023 and said the mortality rate has dropped by 6 % to 1.26. Initial analysis for 2024 decreased by 1.2 deaths at a distance of 100 million miles.
As always, though, the benefits are far away from uniform, and Handful of states Continue account for a The big share In addition to fourteen states of the massacre, Columbia District saw an increase in road deaths in 2024, sometimes despite the sharp “vision zero” measures by local governments, not reducing the number of accidents.
Before we get smuggled too much, though, note that it is 2019 Was a safest year to drive a car in the USAnd we have a long journey to go back to these levels.