The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported Friday that an estimated 26,000 people were killed in vehicle crashes over the first nine months of 2015. That’s up 9.3% from a total of 23,796 in the same period in 2014.
Since 2006, when 31,895 people were killed in crashes in the first nine months of the year, the trend has been almost straight downward, with the exception of 5.7% year-over-year increase in 2012. The fatality rate per 100 million miles driven fell to a 10-year low of 1.07 for all of 2014. Through the first nine months of 2015, the fatality rate was 1.10 and rose to 1.19 in the third quarter alone, the highest rate since 2012.
The increased carnage could be due partly to the fact that Americans are driving more. Preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows that vehicle miles traveled in the first nine months of 2015 increased by about 80.2 billion miles, a rise of about 3.5%.
The part of the country with the largest year-over-year increase for the first nine months of the year is the NHTSA’s region 10, which includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The Southeast (region 4) posted a 16% increase, the New England states (region 1) posted a 14% increase, and the Central Atlantic (region 3) and Upper Midwest (region 5) states both had a 12% increase.
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The NHTSA said that it is “too soon to speculate on the contributing factors or potential implications of any changes in deaths on our roadways.” Final data for 2014, as well as the annual file for 2015, will be available in late fall of this year.
Research reported in October of last year from Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute showed that highway fatalities represented 1.3% of all deaths in the United States in 2013. The state with the highest fatality rate per 100,000 population was Montana (22.6), while the lowest was the District of Columbia (3.1).
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