HIGHWAY FATALITY RATES HAVE RISEN DRAMATICALLY
Highway Fatalities Creep Upward
April 25, 2003

According to a preliminary estimate by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 42,850 people died on U.S. highways last year, up from 42,116 in 2001. However, the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled stayed the same at 1.51.

After declining throughout the 1990s, highway fatalities began rising in 1999. The number of fatalities in 2002 is the highest since 1990, NHTSA said.

The agency also noted that 59 percent of those killed in traffic accidents last year were not wearing safety belts and said the number of rollover deaths rose 4.9 percent, from 10,130 in 2001 to 10,626 in 2002.

NHTSA attributed 53 percent of the increase in fatalities in 2002 to rollover crashes involving sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said the rollover stat reflects both the increasing popularity of sport-utility vehicles and light trucks, and failure of many occupants of those vehicles to fail to buckle up — in recent years, the percentage of unbelted fatalities in SUV rollovers has reached as high as 72 percent. "It's a combination of changes in the fleet and the fact that people for some reason insist on driving without seat belts," Tyson said of the new numbers.

Highway death details:

     

  • Alcohol-related deaths climbed to 17,970 from 17,448 in 2001.
  • The number of children — age 7 or younger — killed dropped to 980 from 1,053.
  • Motorcycle fatalities rose 3 percent to 3,276, with deaths among drivers 50 and over up 24 percent.
  • The number of people killed in passenger cars rose to 4,746 from 4,549, a 4.3 percent increase.
  • The number of people killed in vans fell to 695 from 784, an 11.4 percent decrease.
  • The number of people killed in SUVs rose to 2,353 from 2,142, a 9.9 percent increase.
  • The number of people killed in pickup trucks rose to 2,819 from 2,643, a 6.7 percent increase.

     

The number of people injured in crashes in 2002 was 170,000, up from 155,000 in 2001, a 9.7 percent increase. Of those, 83,000 were in passenger cars (up from 71,000, a 16.9 percent rise), 10,000 were in vans (about the same as last year), 42,000 were in SUVs (up from 38,000, a 10.5 percent rise), and 35,000 were in pickup trucks, (a 2.8 percent decline from 36,000).

Source: NHTSA