NHTSA Reports Traffic Fatalities Drop in H1 2024, But There’s Still More Work to Do

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently released their estimates on road fatalities for the first half of 2024. According to their statistics, fatalities on America's roadways decreased from 19,330 deaths in H1 2023 to 18,720 in H1 2024, a 3.2% drop.

Coupled with a 13.1 billion mile increase in vehicle-miles traveled (VMT), this brought the fatality rate down from 1.21 fatalities per 100 million VMT to 1.17. While at the lowest point since the pandemic, it's still significantly above the 2019 H1 fatality rate of 1.07 per 100 million VMT.

Rhode Island had the largest decrease in fatality rates, moving from 1.06 fatalities per 100 million VMT in 2023 to 0.48 in 2024 (-55%). The Ocean State was followed by Wyoming (-28%), Iowa (-21%), Delaware (-19%) and Kansas (-15%).

Maine saw the largest jump in fatality rate, moving from 0.65 fatalities per 100 million VMT to 1.08 (+66%). Maine's roads saw 77 fatalities in the first half of 2024, up from 45 in the first part of 2023. The Northeastern-most state in the country was followed by Minnesota (+30%), Nebraska (+29%), New Jersey (+23%), and Nevada (+17%).

While the latest figures are a step in the right direction, America's roads are still reeling from the sharp increase in fatalities through the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Automobile Association (AAA) released a study in June that found traffic fatalities were 17% higher during the pandemic than modeled pre-COVID trends. Time of day was a huge factor. They found that the overnight periods saw the largest increase in fatalities.

Speed continues to play a large role, as AAA's study found that "speeding exceeded corresponding forecasts by 24%-28% in all three periods examined." During the pandemic year 2020, the study found that "the increase in…speeding drivers in fatal crashes actually accounted for the majority of the overall increase in fatal crashes."

Conclusion

It's 'all hands on deck' for eliminating traffic fatalities. As kids go back to school, as micro-mobility use grows, and as our population ages, we need to explore every practical solution to reducing road fatalities. One way city and state Departments of Transportation are approaching this is by using pilot programs.

Instead of waiting months, if not years for a safety study, big data and analytics SaaS platforms like Safety View provide quick and accurate feedback on key safety metrics like speeds, speed distributions, and near-misses to quickly adjust the project before making it a fixture in the transportation network.