Facts + Statistics: Highway safety

The cost and crashworthiness of vehicles as well as drivers’ safety habits affect the cost of auto insurance. Out of concern for public safety and to help reduce the cost of crashes, insurers support safe driving initiatives. The insurance industry is a major supporter of anti-drunk driving and seatbelt usage campaigns.

 

Lives saved by safety devices

• Airbags: Airbags are designed to inflate in moderate to severe frontal crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that as of 2013 there were 202 million airbag-equipped passenger vehicles on the road in the United States, including 199 million with dual air bags. The agency says that frontal airbags saved 2,573 lives in 2015. Airbags, combined with seatbelts, are the most effective safety protection available for passenger vehicles. Seatbelts alone reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent. The fatality-reducing effectiveness for frontal airbags is 14 percent when no seatbelt is used and 11 percent when a seatbelt is used in conjunction with airbags.
• Seatbelts: Among passenger vehicle occupants age five and older, seatbelts saved an estimated 13,941 lives in 2015. In fatal crashes in 2014, about 80 percent of passenger vehicle occupants who were totally ejected from the vehicle were killed. NHTSA says that when used seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. For light truck occupants, the risk is reduced by 60 percent and 65 percent, respectively.
• Child safety seats: NHTSA says that in 2015 the lives of an estimated 266 children under the age of five were saved by restraints.
• Motorcycle helmets: NHTSA estimates that helmets saved the lives of 1,772 motorcyclists in 2015. If all motorcyclists had worn helmets, an additional 740 lives could have been saved.
• Helmets are estimated to be 37 percent effective in preventing fatal injuries to motorcycle riders and 41 percent for motorcycle passengers. In other words, for every 100 motorcycle riders killed in crashes while not wearing a helmet, 37 of them could have been saved had all 100 worn helmets.
• Electronic stability control: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires all vehicles manufactured after model year 2012 to have electronic stability control (ESC). All new passenger cars, light trucks, SUVs and vans must comply with the requirement. ESC was designed to help prevent rollovers and other types of crashes by controlling brakes and engine power.
• NHTSA says ESC saved an estimated 681 passenger car occupant lives in 2014 and 899 lives among light truck and van occupants for a total of 1,580 lives saved among passenger vehicle occupants. The 2014 total for lives compares with 1,366 lives saved in 2013 and 1,225 lives saved in 2012. Over the five years from 2010 to 2014, NHTSA says the ESC has saved a total of more than 4,100 lives.
• NHTSA estimated that about 99 million 2006-model year and newer passenger vehicles (passenger cars and light trucks and vans) were equipped with ESC.  This works out to 38.8 percent of the 255 million passenger vehicles on the road in 2014.
• In May 2014 NHTSA released a report on updated estimates of fatality reduction by electronic stability control (ESC), which found that in single-vehicle crashes of passenger cars, where the first harmful event was a rollover, ESC decreased rollovers by 59.5 percent, relative to a control group. The reduction in rollovers was even more dramatic in LTVs such as pickup trucks, SUVs and vans, 74 percent.
• In June 2010 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released the findings of a study that found that ESC for passenger vehicles is one of the most effective technologies for the prevention of fatal crashes, especially rollovers. IIHS data show that it lowers the risk of a deadly crash by 33 percent and cuts the risk of a single-vehicle rollover by 73 percent. The IIHS examined 10 years of crash data from NHTSA.

 

Motor vehicle crashes

2017: Traffic fatalities were 1 percent lower in the first six months of 2017, compared with the same period in 2016, according to preliminary estimates from the National Safety Council (NSC).  The organization says the decline comes after the steepest estimated two-year increase in traffic deaths since 1964.  In addition, the first six months tally for 2017 is 8 percent higher than the same period in 2015.

2016: According to data released by the National Safety Council (NSC), in 2016 there were more than 40,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S. for the first time in 10 years. The NSC statistics show a 6 percent increase in auto crash deaths in 2016, and a 3 percent rise in the number of miles Americans drove, compared with 2015. NSC estimates that the cost of deaths, injuries and property damage attributed to crashes in 2016 totaled $432.5 billion, up 12 percent from 2015. Nearly 4.6 million people required medical treatment after crashes, an increase of 7 percent over 2015.

2015: According to NHTSA, traffic fatalities rose 7.2 percent in 2015 to 35,092 people from 32,744 in 2014. In 2015 an estimated 2.44 million people were injured in motor vehicle crashes. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2015 rose to 1.07 from 1.08 in 2014.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, vehicle occupants accounted for 66 percent of traffic deaths in 2015. Motorcycle riders accounted for 14 percent. Pedestrians accounted for another 15 percent; pedalcyclists, bus and other nonoccupants accounted for the remainder.

 

Motor Vehicle Deaths Per 100,000 Persons By Age, 2015

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Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

View Archived Graphs

 

Motor vehicle crashes by time of year

Traffic fatalities spike during different periods.

• In 2014 October had the most fatal crashes, February had the least, according to data from theNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
• The beginning of daylight savings is linked to an increase in auto accidents, according to an analysis by the University of British Columbia and a study by researchers at John Hopkins and Stanford University.
• Holidays are generally a time of increased travel. In 2014, Thanksgiving Day was the holiday period with the most motor vehicle deaths (403), followed by Labor Day (362), Christmas Day (355), Independence Day (347), Memorial Day (337) and New Year’s Day (126). See chart below.
• Fifty more people on average die in traffic crashes during Thanksgiving week than during other weeks of the year, according to a University of Alabama study. Speeding, alcohol, time of day and weather, factors that affect crashes all year, are exaggerated during the holiday.
• In 2013, about 50 percent of fatal crashes occurred on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, according to NHTSA.

 

Distracted driving

Activities that take drivers’ attention off the road, including talking or texting on cellphones, eating, conversing with passengers and other distractions, are a major safety threat. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gauges distracted driving by collecting data on distraction-affected crashes,  which focus on distractions that are most likely to affect crash involvement such as dialing a cellphone or texting and being distracted by another person or an outside event. In 2015, 3,477 people were killed in distraction-affected crashes, and 391,000 people were injured. There were 3,196 distraction-affected fatal crashes, accounting for 10 percent of all fatal crashes in the nation, 15 percent of injury crashes and 14 percent of all motor vehicle crashes in 2015.

However, texting bans may not reduce crash rates, according to a Highway Loss Data Institute study of collision claims patterns in California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Washington before and after texting bans went into effect. Collisions went up slightly in all the states, except Washington, where the change was statistically insignificant.

Teen girls are twice as likely as teen boys to use cell phones and other electronic devices while driving, according to a March, 2012 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

 

Pedestrian accidents

Pedestrians struck by cars are most often hit while in the crosswalk with the signal on their side, according to an analysis of pedestrian injuries treated at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. About 8 percent of the injured pedestrians were hurt while using an electronic device, according to the study. The study, which is highlighted in an April 2013 New York Times article, also looked at bicycle injuries. The study was published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. In 2010, 4,280 pedestrians died.

In 2015, 5,376 pedestrians were killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States, according to NHTSA. 2015 pedestrian fatalities rose 9.5 percent from 2014 to the highest number since 1996. An additional 70,000 pedestrians were injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2015. On average, a pedestrian was killed every 1.6 hours in the United States and injured every 7.5 minutes in 2015. In 2015 pedestrian deaths accounted for 15 percent of all traffic fatalities.

In 2015, 34 percent of fatally injured pedestrians had a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of 0.1 percent or higher.