Traffic fatalities have been inching up ever since covid. About 43,230 people died in 2021 the year after the Covid Pandemic. Traffic deaths are up 20% from a decade ago. Approximately 39,345 people died in 2024 compared 32,744 in 2014.
Since the covid-19 pandemic, the Pew Research Center found, Americans’ driving habits have worsened across multiple measures, from reckless driving to drunken driving, which road safety advocates call a public health failure. They say technology could dramatically reduce traffic deaths, but proposals often run up against industry resistance, and the Trump administration is focusing on driverless cars to both innovate and improve public safety.
Overzealous regulations that mandate expensive technology is not an easy answer to better safety. One California legislator introduced a bill to force automakers to embed software that would limit driving more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Other measures proposed include making all cars sold include a breathalyzer in the ignition. Many experts believe autonomous, self-driving cars will enhance safety, while others worry they will increase injury.
One problem is pedestrians getting struck by cars. People are told to get out and walk to save gas, save the planet, and get their bodies moving for health reasons. Sometimes they would have been better off driving.
“Every day, 20 people go out for a walk, and they don’t return home,” said Adam Snider, a spokesperson for the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state road safety offices.
American roads have become more dangerous than violent crimes in some cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston are among the major cities that now report more traffic fatalities than homicides.
“Simply put, the United States is in the middle of a road safety emergency,” David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, testified during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this summer.
The previous quote seems rather dramatic. The U.S. is not in the middle of a road safety emergency. Traffic deaths are near historic lows. Traffic fatalities peaked as a percentage of the population in 1969, with 26.42 deaths per 100,000 people. The highest number of traffic deaths on record was in 1972, when 54,589 people died. At that time there were only about 210 million people in the United States with a total of 1.26 trillion miles traveled. Car travel has become much safer in the past 100 years or so. The traffic death rate per capita is less than half what it was 50 years ago. The death rate per miles traveled is less than one-quarter of what it was in 1966. For that matter, the death rate per miles traveled was 18 times higher in 1921 than in 2023. Roads have become safer. Cars have become much safer. Drivers have become much safer. By any measure, efforts to reduce traffic deaths is a tremendous success.
It is a tragedy when people die unnecessarily or from other people’s negligence due to distractions or impairment. However, much has already been done to improve traffic safety. Cars are engineered to have crumple zones on impact. Cars have seat belts and airbags. Cars sold cannot have video screens that can be seen by the driver. Nearly two-thirds of states ban hand-held cellphone use while driving and virtually all states ban texting while driving. Across all states the drinking age has been increased. My German SUV even has a warning that alerts me when I inadvertently swerve, am not paying attention or attempt to change lanes when another car is in my blind spot.
In the past I have written about mission creep in the public health community. I would argue that traffic safety is not a public health issue. Rather, it is an engineering problem. It is also a law enforcement problem. Doctors and professors of public health are not responsible for improved auto safety; engineers are and they have a lot to be proud of. Driving is risky compared to staying home. We should be wary of those who would raise the cost of driving (or limit the speed) in the name of safety.
Read more at KFF Health News: ‘They Don’t Return Home’: Cities Across US Fail To Curb Traffic Deaths