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Early results say US traffic fatalities increased by 3% to as much as 6% in 2022 over 2022. Texting and other smartphone apps are cited often past safety officials for the increase. They're besides pointing to the usual suspects, too: seat belts not worn, seat belt laws non enforced, speeding, drunken driving, and legislators unwilling to pass more safe-driving laws.

The size of the increase depends a lot on how y'all ascertain the numbers. In raw data, National Safety Council data shows an increase of 6% in 2022 over 2022. But if you cistron for the growing population and/or the number of miles driven, it'due south 3%. When yous wait at historical trends, the increase is a blip on the nautical chart (below). But no question, traffic deaths are up the terminal two years.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data through 2022

Historical reduction vs. 2-year increase

NSC nautical chart: motor vehicle deaths since 2000.

The headlines this week stem from from a National Prophylactic Council release declaring 2022 motor vehicle deaths to be the nation's highest in nine years. By the NSC's numbers, motor vehicle fatalities in 2022, 2022 and 2022 were 35,398, 37,757, and xl,200, representing a 6% increase 2022 over 2022, and 14% over ii years. Those are the headline-grabber numbers.

Statistical researchers say the nigh authentic way to tabulate traffic fatalities is deaths per 100 million miles traveled or per 100,000 population. The US population has tripled since highway fatalities and miles driven were first calculated in 1920. (The population was 106 one thousand thousand in 1920, 200 million 50 years ago (1967), 257 meg 25 years agone (1992), and 326 million in 2022.) Fatalities per 100 million miles driven is considered more accurate than deaths because information technology reflects fewer miles driven in bad times, more miles driven when the economic system grows. The average American drives nearly 800,000 miles in a lifetime (men well-nigh 1 million miles, women about 600,000), then the odds of dying in auto accident are about ane%.

Interestingly, the National Prophylactic Council calculates annual highway deaths about viii% college than the National Highway Traffic Prophylactic Administration, but the percentage increase is more than comparable. Function of the difference lies in fatality calculations: NSC includes fatalities off public roads (parking lots, private areas) and for up to 100 versus 30 days later on the accidents. In 2022, NSC reported 37,757 fatalities, while NHTSA listed 35,092. NHTSA won't report 2022 information until the heart of 2022.

Blame texting for the electric current run-up?

While NSC says the increases in deaths are six% for one year, 14% for 2 years, the fairer calculation (deaths per 100 meg VMTs, or vehicle miles traveled) is v% over 1 year or 9% over the past two years. That's notwithstanding significant. The last time in that location were 5%, one-year increases was in the late 1990s; the terminal time for nine% ii-year increases was in the late 1980s.

Hither are some reasons proposed by condom officials for the current increases, and thoughts on the odds this is the cause:

  • Texting and other smartphone apps. Information technology's a likely culprit, at least for function of the increase. Only: Texting has been around for more than than the past two years, and deaths per mile traveled have been apartment or down in each of the previous eight years, back to 2007. This supposes Americans got sloppier in their texting habits starting in 2022.
  • Distracted telephoning. Some research shows that just talking on the phone distracts attending from the route. The National Rubber Council has called for a ban on cellphone use past drivers, including easily-free calling and text. But: Same statement every bit with texting — our habits must have changed starting in 2022. And nosotros've always had in-machine distractions such as chatty passengers, tuning the radio, lighting cigarettes, and bees flying in open windows.
  • Lenient seat belt laws. Merely xviii "primary offense" states require forepart and back seat belts be worn, and a machine can be pulled over for that offense lone. In fifteen states, failure to habiliment a seat belt is a secondary offense only, meaning y'all have to exist stopped for something else (tail lamp out, speeding) and and so the seat belt ticket can be written, too. But: This is an ongoing issue; it's unlikely many seat-chugalug users stopped in the by two years.
  • Speeding. Critics say speed kills. The laws of physics show that a car hits an object more than than a 3rd harder at 70 mph than 60 mph. Excess speed is cited in a third of all accidents. Critics also note 1,500 miles of Us highways are set at 75 mph or higher; Texas has a couple rural highways with 85 mph limits. But: Accident reports often listing multiple causes of an accident. Speed as the primary cause of accidents is a lot less than one-third. A drunkard who'southward unbelted and goes off a rain-swept 55 mph curved route at 75 mph at night with weak headlamps, worn brakes, and most baldheaded tires, there could be a half-dozen causes to the crash.
  • Not enough cops writing speeding tickets. Safety officials would similar to run across that or more photo radar cameras. (The opposite of what virtually motorists want.) But:While some condom officials believe speeding tickets are nigh safety, most anybody else knows: It'south more than about revenue. Cops hate writing tickets. When they finish a machine to write a ticket, they might discover a drunken driver. Simply in that same time, they could have been patrolling ten-20 miles of highway and checked dozens of cars for erratic driving. Besides, there's increasing doubts about the accuracy and fairness of red light cameras and some of that doubt spills over to speed cameras.

The NSC would too like to see more than states with mandatory motorcycle helmet laws and more frequent employ of ignition interlocks to prevent convicted drunk drivers from driving drunk over again.

One solution: more than driver assists

Y'all can cure people of bad habits — get them to cease — or you could fight bad habits with technology. A car equipped with adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, automated emergency braking, pedestrian detection, and lane departure warning tin can aid. A driver who reads a text might have his or her optics off the road for a couple seconds; the aforementioned person might type for 5-x seconds without looking up. They shouldn't be doing information technology, just plainly many people do that.

With adaptive cruise and lane departure warning, the car responds automatically if you start to drift out of lane (the auto beeps and/or brings yous back into the lane), and slows downward if yous get besides close to the car in front. This is a fractional defense against people who text too much.

Voice texting — reading the bulletin out loud, converting the spoken text respond to words — is safer than texting by hand. Is it somewhat distracting? Possibly, to the extent the commuter is a poor multitasker. But overall, it's safer — at least, less distracting — than writing texts by hand.

Equally for safety officials' ongoing demands that the car figure a fashion to shut off all texting by everyone in the car: It ain't gonna happen.