Highway fatalities declined slightly in 2022 despite an increase in the miles of driving, and they declined again in the first three months of 2023. However, the changes are small and it’s too soon to say whether this is a trend or just a short-term quirk in the data.
Photo by Ragesoss.
Short-term changes in fatalities and fatality rates are something of a mystery. In the long run, safer roads and safer cars have pushed down fatalities from a peak of 55,600 in 1972, for a rate of 44.1 deaths per billion vehicle-miles of travel, to a low of under 32,500 in 2011, for a rate of only 11.0 deaths per billion vehicle-miles. The rate fell even lower to 10.8 per billion in 2014. Continue reading
