The historical trend for traffic deaths has been a decline. Ever since safety became a focus in the 70s, traffic deaths have generally fallen to lower levels every year.
The recent statistics show that things are bucking this trend. In 2021, more than 42,000 people died in traffic accidents, which was the highest in the last 16 years. It was an amazing spike, and it’s also problematic because it followed a similar spike in 2020. This makes it clear that traffic deaths are trending back up, rather than down. Why could this be?
It may be temporary
One thing to consider is that this may just be a temporary spike, and we will then see a decline in traffic deaths over the next five or 10 years. There have been spikes like this in the past, but they haven’t taken away from the overall trend as the roads get safer – or as the vehicles do more to protect their passengers.
Texting and driving
Another thing to consider is the fact that distracted driving is still a major issue. This isn’t exactly new at this point, but smartphones are more popular every day. It seems like everyone has a phone in their pocket at all times, and many drivers are willing to try to use these phones for navigation, music, text messages, conversations, videos or pictures, and much else. Even if they’re in the car, they’ll still use the phone, and this causes traffic accidents that simply wouldn’t have occurred twenty years ago.
If you’ve lost a loved one in a car accident or if you’ve been injured by a negligent driver, be sure you know how to seek financial compensation.