Driver, Passenger Deaths Down in 2018, but Car vs. Pedestrian Is Up

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• Motor-vehicle accident deaths dropped in 2018 compared with the previous year, although the fatality count of 36,560 is still no small number.
  
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• Two states had a large increase in fatalities.
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• Although deaths on the road are down significantly compared with 1975 statistics, pedestrian and cyclist deaths increased last year.
  

More than 36,000 people died in U.S. motor-vehicle accidents last year, a slight decline from 2017. But that improvement is offset by sharper upticks in pedestrian and cyclist deaths, according to the latest data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Since fatalities started rising in 2015 after dropping and remaining relatively flat since the 2009 recession, the 36,560 deaths in 2018 represent a 2 percent decline compared with 2017. In total, there were 913 fewer deaths that year despite a hairline increase to the estimate of the nation's cumulative mileage, at an estimated 3.2 billion miles.

On the bright side, despite record numbers of cars and trucks registered on U.S. roads-more than 268 million, by the government's last count in 2017-the number of fatalities per 100 million miles declined by 3 percent. That's the most telling statistic. In 1975, when there was a significantly lower population of people and vehicles, on average 3.4 people died per 100 million miles. In 2018, the number was down to 1.1.

On the not so bright side, both pedestrian and cyclist deaths increased in 2018 to levels not seen since 1990. NHTSA recorded 6283 pedestrian deaths, a 3 percent increase from 2017. The 857 cyclists who died represented a 6 percent increase.

NHTSA is proposing an update to its crash-test standards to account for pedestrians and other "vulnerable road users." (Motorcyclists, which certainly are part of that latter group, suffered 4985 deaths in 2018, a decrease of 5 percent.) If adopted, the U.S. would likely have pedestrian-impact tests similar to those in Europe and would include these results in crash-test scores.

NHTSA said it is drafting a proposal that will be open for public comment in 2020. The agency wants "major upgrades" to its crash tests, including new labeling and crash-test dummies. The upgrades will likely include formal ratings on emergency braking and pedestrian detection systems.

There are two states where the death tolls were more harrowing. In New Hampshire, vehicle deaths spiked 44 percent. Of that, alcohol-related deaths in the Granite State surged 78 percent. Oregon, at 15 percent, was the only other state that saw double-digit death increases in 2018.

Rhode Island saw the most dramatic decline in motor vehicle fatalities, at 30 percent, followed by Maine (down 21 percent), Kansas (12 percent), and Maryland (10 percent). NHTSA said that alcohol-related deaths (involving impaired drivers or motorcycle riders) accounted for 29 percent of all fatalities, which was the lowest since 1982 when the agency began reporting the data. Nearly half of all fatalities involved people who were unbuckled. Seatbelt studies estimate that roughly 90 percent of Americans continue to buckle up.

Senior drivers are more at risk of dying in a car crash, according to NHTSA. Drivers 65 years and older were involved in 35 percent more fatal crashes in 2018 than they were in 2009-the highest of the four age groups NHTSA documents (drivers 16 to 24 were involved in 9 percent fewer fatal crashes, while those ages 25 to 44 and 45 to 64 also were responsible for more fatal crashes, at 15 and 17 percent increases, respectively).

Without accounting for how much we drive, ride, or face traffic as pedestrians in a given year, U.S. roads are still relatively safe compared to the rest of the world. Using older data from 2015, the World Health Organization calculates estimated road deaths per capita. Japan, with less than half the population of the U.S. living in a significantly denser country, has half the death rate of the U.S. (10.6) at 4.7 deaths per 100,000 people. But massive countries like Russia and China each have death rates of nearly 19. In Brazil and many parts of Central America, the Middle East, and Africa, the numbers are higher still.

Preliminary data for the first half of 2019 suggests that there were 589 fewer fatalities compared to the same time in 2018. Full-year data for 2019 won't be available until this time in 2020.