Do you ever wonder how safe you and your loved ones are on the road? If so, you’re not alone. Many an Alabama resident is curious about his or her safety as well as the safety of friends and family members. Sadly, some recently released data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that Alabamans’ safety is in jeopardy and so too is the safety of all Americans.
Statistics that document the number of deaths in automobile accidents show an increase from 2015 to 2016 for the first nine months of each year. Details about the last quarter of 2016 are not yet available. From January through September of 2016, there were 27,875 fatalities across the United States in motor vehicle crashes. For the same period in 2015, there were 25,808 such fatalities. That is a jump of eight percent year over year. In looking at the same period in 2014, the 2015 fatality rate is more than eight percent greater. These two consecutive years of increases follow two previous years of declines in vehicular fatalities.
The southeast region including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina itself experienced a 15 percent jump from 2015 to 2016 for the first three quarters of those years. In 2014, Alabama experienced 820 vehicular deaths. In 2015, the state recorded 849 deaths in automobile wrecks. The NHTSA noted also that people have been driving more in recent years.
If you would like to learn more about trends in and risks associated with motor vehicle accidents, please feel free to visit the traffic fatality page of our Alabama personal injury website.
