In December 2011, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a research note providing statistics and analyses of motor vehicle crashes that took place in the country in 2010. The research note includes statistics on numerous categories, such as fatality rates, injury rates, and crash type.
The NHTSA reports that in 2010 the number of fatalities from motor vehicle crashes in the United States (32,885) reached the lowest number since 1949. Furthermore, this number was 2.9% less than the number of fatalities from motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2009 (33,883). In further positive news, the report notes that the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2010 decreased to a significant low of 1.10.
Although the number of motor vehicle fatalities decreased in 2010, the number of motor vehicle injuries increased slightly for the same year. In 2009, approximately 2.22 million people were injured in motor vehicle accidents. In 2010, roughly 2.24 million people were injured in motor vehicle crashes, a slight increase of 1.2% from the previous year. However, the research note specifies that this increase in injuries is not statistically significant.
The report did provide some negative statistics from 2010, particularly regarding large truck crashes. There was an 8.7% increase in the number of fatalities resulting from crashes involving large trucks. In 2010, the percentage of fatalities of large-truck occupants increased by 6% when compared to the previous year.
Furthermore, motorcyclist fatalities accounted for 14% of the total number of motor vehicle fatalities in 2010. The number of fatalities resulting from alcohol-impaired driving accounted for 31% of the total number of motor vehicle crash fatalities in 2010. The report also indicated that over half of the people killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2010 were unrestrained.
See the full NHTSA article at:
