32,719 Died in Traffic Accidents in the US Last Year

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 20, 8:45AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

The rate of deadly traffic accidents dropped 24% from 2004 to 2013. However, 32,719 people were killed last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The agency released specific data:

The more than three percent decline in traffic fatalities continues a long-term downward trend leading to the fatality rate matching a historic low — 1.10 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2013, down from 1.14 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2012. Other key statistics include:

The number of passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes declined by 3 percent to 21,132 — the lowest number on record dating back to 1975. Passenger vehicles include passenger cars, SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks.

Large truck occupant (0.9 percent) and motorcyclist (6.4 percent) fatalities declined for the first time since 2009.

Pedestrian fatalities declined by 1.7 percent to 4,735, but remains 15 percent higher than the record low of 4,109 pedestrian fatalities in 2009.

Pedalcyclist fatalities increased by 1.2 percent, the highest since 2006.

The estimated number of people injured in crashes decreased across all person types in 2013 when compared to 2012, with declines among passenger vehicle occupants (2.2 percent), large truck occupants (4 percent), motorcyclists (5.4 percent), pedestrians (13 percent), and pedalcyclists (2 percent).

The number of people killed in distraction-affected crashes fell to 3,154 in 2013 from 3,380 in 2012, a 6.7 percent decrease. However, the estimated number of people injured in distraction-affected crashes (424,000) increased by 1 percent compared to 2012.

In several states, the drops were large:

Thirty-four states experienced reductions in overall traffic fatalities, led by Ohio (132 fewer fatalities), Kentucky (108 fewer), Pennsylvania (102 fewer), South Carolina (96 fewer) and Arkansas (77 fewer).

However, the NHTSA reported that in a couple of places the numbers rose sharply, at least on a percentage basis. New Hampshire saw a 25% gain from 2012 to 2013 to 135 fatalities, and the District of Columbia had an increase of 33% in that time to 20.

The states with the highest numbers of fatalities in 2013 were Texas with 3,382, California with 3,000 and Florida with 2,407.

ALSO READ: America’s 50 Best Cities to Live

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.