2008 Preliminary Traffic Fatality Stats

Our friends from the NHTSA have released preliminary 2008 numbers, based on statistical projections.

2008 fatalities in motor vehicle traffic crashes are estimated to have dropped to 37,313 – a 9.1-percent decline from the 41,059 fatalities reported in 2007. The actual count of fatalities will be reported in August 2009. … (VMT) in 2008 dropped by about 3.6 percent to 2,922 billion miles. The fatality rate, computed per 100 million VMT, dropped from 1.36 in 2007 to 1.28 in 2008

State breakdowns are not given, they have “regions”.  An outfit I never heard of called zerofatalities.com is quoting Arizona’s 2008 total at 921 (about a 15% decline from 2007’s 1071). Which sounds about right.

There is a bit of harping on the seat-belt figures — this is obviously some sort of orchestrated push, see e.g see The Official blog of the US Secretary of Transportation. In a separate NHSTA report, Arizona is admonished for a decline in seatbelt usage, bucking the trend, falling ONE percent. But one has to wonder about these stats, which fluctuated wildly for Arizona over the past few year, e.g. the rate supposedly fell from 94% to 79% (FIFTEEN points!) from 2005 to 2006.

There is a general anomoly with use rates versus fatalites; e.g. Massachusetts has the “worst” seat belt usage rate; but their fatality rates are exceptionally low — MUCH lower than AZ.  WSJ recently did an article on Vermont being the only and last US state to not have a seat belt law (which costs them federal highway dollars). Vermont already enjoys both high usage rates and very low fatality rates compared to, say, Arizona — without the law.

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