Car Accidents Are On The Raise

The UNITED STATE is on speed to record close to 40,000 road and highway deaths for the third consecutive year, inning accordance with preliminary figures released Wednesday by the National Safety Council. The silver lining in those dark numbers is that the number of people passing away each year in traffic accidents across the country seems leveling off after 2 years of sharp increases.

Based on state-reported stats, the National Safety Council says roughly 18,720 individuals died on U.S. highways in between January and June of this year. That's a less than 0.5 percent dip from 18,770 deaths tape-recorded in the very first six months of in 2015.

From 2014 to 2016, the variety of people killed in motor vehicle crashes jumped from a little over 35,000 to more than 40,000, before leveling off at about 40,000 casualties in 2015, a pattern that seems continuing.

" We are seeing a plateauing of the variety of deaths in the first six months of 2018 compared with 2017," said Ken Kolosh, the lead researcher for the National Security Council.

" So in some sense we are treading water right now," he said, "and treading water is much better than drowning, however it is not as good as moving on and improving."

The rise in highway deaths accompanied a growing economy and cheaper gas costs, which integrated to lead to a sharp increase in car miles traveled, which Kolosh calls "a best storm" to increase motor vehicle casualties. While the economy continues to grow, the number of vehicle miles traveled up until now this year is not increasing at the rate of those 2014-2016 levels. Current levels are still lower than the early 2000s.

Kolosh says speeding, drug and alcohol impaired driving, distracted driving and failure to use seat belts all continue to add to automobile casualties even as vehicles and roads end up being safer.

" Automobiles are getting much safer," said Kolosh, referring to rear-view electronic cameras, lane departure cautions and other safety features that are ending up being standard on numerous brand-new automobiles.

" But not everybody sell their vehicle to obtain the latest security innovation," he stated, "so security improvements vehiclewise take many, many years, if not a decade, to trickle into the system."

One improvement seems in the area of sidetracked driving, as Kolosh says there is some evidence motorists may be texting less behind the wheel and doing fewer other jobs on their smartphones while driving.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration carries out observation research studies every year, taking a look at what chauffeurs are doing behind the wheel. "And they're in fact seeing decreases in the number of chauffeurs interacting with their cellular phones while behind the wheel," says Kolosh, including that tougher laws prohibiting texting and talking on hand-held gadgets seem working.