Arkansas Trucking Association

Traffic fatalities increase throughout pandemic; USDOT responds with safety strategy

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, early estimates of motor vehicle traffic crashes for the first nine months of 2021, fatalities have increased 12%, the highest in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System’s history. NHTSA projects that an estimated 31,720 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes from January through September 2021, up from the 28,325 fatalities projected for the first nine months of 2020. The projection is the highest number of fatalities during the first nine months of any year since 2006.

The vehicle miles traveled from January to September 2021 increased by about 244 billion miles from the previous
year when many states experienced stay-at-home measures at some point in 2020. Most states experienced increases in the fatality rate per 100 million VMT over the period. Given the significant changes in fatalities in 2020 and 2021, there was interest in the traffic safety community in estimated changes at the state level to assess emerging trends.

Thirty-eight states, including Arkansas, are projected to have experienced increases in fatalities during the first
nine months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. “This is a national crisis. We cannot and must not accept these deaths as an inevitable part of everyday life,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The good news is we now have a strategy, as well as the resources and programs to deliver it, thanks to the President’s
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The National Roadway Safety Strategy is America’s first-ever national,  comprehensive plan to significantly reduce deaths and injuries on our roads.”

The number of U.S. traffic deaths surged in the first nine months of 2021 to 31,720, the government reported Feb.
1, keeping up a record pace of increased dangerous driving during the coronavirus pandemic.

Before 2019, the number of fatalities had fallen for three straight years.

The National Roadway Safety Strategy is intended to reverse the trend through focus on driver behaviors, infrastructure design, safer vehicles and technology, speed reduction and post-crash care.