Traffic Deaths -Good And Bad News In The U.S., And Surprising Progress In One European Nation

Fewer people died in road traffic crash fatalities in this country in the first three months of 2023 than in the same period in 2022, even as more miles were driven. The first quarter of the year represents the fourth straight quarterly decline in fatalities after seven consecutive quarters of year-to-year increases in fatalities, beginning with the third quarter of 2020, according to recently released estimates from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“After spiking during the pandemic, traffic deaths have been on a slow but consistent decline for the past year,” Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Transportation Secretary, said in a statement.

Fatalities decreased in 32 states, while 18 states and Puerto Rico have projected increases. The District of Columbia remained unchanged. Nationwide, that’s about a 3.3% decrease compared to fatalities during the same time in 2022.

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“This is an encouraging sign as we work to reverse the rise in roadway deaths, but there is much more work ahead to reinforce this downward trend and make it permanent,” Buttigieg added.

Despite the good news, too many people are still dying and getting seriously injured on the nation’s roadways in preventable crashes, the federal agency noted. New vehicle standards to make cars safer, investing millions of dollars to improve infrastructure and roadway safety, and adopting a National Roadway Safety Strategy, a road map for addressing the death toll, are among the measures being taken to address what many traffic safety experts call a national crisis.

“Traffic fatalities dropped slightly for the first time after years of surging upward – a hopeful sign, but one that cannot make us complacent with more than 40,000 people per year dying on American roads,” Corinne Kisner, executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), an association of 96 major North American cities and transit agencies, said in a statement.

“The death toll on our country’s streets remains far higher than that of any other industrialized country, and pedestrian deaths are at a forty-year high,” she added. “The simple culprits – too many U.S. roads designed to move vehicles quickly instead of keeping people safe; unsafe or nonexistent infrastructure for people walking, biking, and taking transit; and SUVs that continue to increase in size – require urgent, all-hands-on-deck, multifaceted solutions from all levels of government.”

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One nation in Europe was recently cited for its progress by cutting traffic fatalities by half in ten years.

Between 2012 and 2022, Poland reduced road deaths by nearly 50%, according to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), a Brussels-based independent non-profit organization, which awarded its 2023 Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) Award to the country to acknowledge its accomplishment. The European Union average reduction was 22% over that period.

In addition to the substantial decrease in road deaths and serious injuries, there were several other factors in the decision to award this year’s prize to Poland, the safety group said, including infrastructure advances, expansion of the speed camera and time-over-distance camera network, an increase in drunk-driving enforcement checks, and the introduction of the “emergency corridor” system of enabling emergency vehicles to access collision sites on motorways.

Despite Poland’s progress, speed limits and vehicle speeds in Poland overall are still too high, the safety group said. The 140 kmh (nearly 87 mph) maximum speed on motorways, for example, is the highest in the EU with the exception of Germany.

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“In ten years, Poland has greatly improved road safety, and set an example on how to take the issue seriously,” Antonio Avenoso, executive director of the European Transport Safety Council, said in a statement. “There has been a genuine commitment to setting targets, improving infrastructure and boosting enforcement, all key factors in this impressive reduction.”

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