Traffic fatalities down in first nine months of 2022

Preliminary data reveals that traffic fatalities went down in the first nine months of 2022 when compared to the previous year.

According to the latest numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 31,785 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes from January through September of 2022. That is a 0.2% drop compared with the first nine months of 2021.

The third quarter of 2022 also marks the second straight decline in traffic fatalities after seven consecutive quarters of year-to-year increases.

A decrease in traffic fatalities comes despite an increase in vehicle miles traveled.

Vehicle miles traveled increased by 1.6% in the first nine months of last year.

The fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled decreased from 1.32 to 1.30.

Despite the overall decrease in traffic fatalities, half of regions in the nation experienced an increase or no change in traffic deaths. Region 1 (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) experienced the largest increase at 5%. Region 6 (Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas) experienced the largest decrease in traffic fatalities with a 5% drop.

Adjusting by fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, Region 1 has the lowest rate at 0.85. Region 6 has the highest rate at 1.54.

Half of the states experienced an increase in traffic fatalities. As a change in percentage, Hawaii experienced the largest increase at 42.2%. The largest decrease was in South Dakota, with a 28.1% drop in traffic deaths. Rhode Island had the lowest fatality rate at 0.64. South Carolina had the highest rate at 1.78.

In its report, NHTSA pointed out that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were significant increases in traffic fatalities and the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2020. However, the trend has been up and down since then.

“The increased trend of the fatality rate per 100 million VMT in 2020 has continued into the first quarter of 2021, decreased in the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2021, and increased again in the first quarter but decreased in the second and the third quar­ter of 2022,” NHTSA stated in its report.

According to NHTSA, these estimates may be further refined when projections for all of 2022 are released in late April. Preliminary data does not indicate crashes by vehicle type. LL