AZ Saw Estimated 18 Percent Increase In Traffic Deaths In 2021

ARIZONA — Dangerous driving habits developed or exacerbated during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to make the nation’s highways more deadly in the first nine months of 2021, the government projected this week.

And the increase was even more notable in Arizona than it was in many other states.

The projected uptick in fatalities in Arizona was significantly larger than the national average, at 18.4 percent. Arizona had an estimated 744 traffic fatalities in the first nine months of 2020, compared to an estimated 881 fatalities for the same time period in 2021.

A new National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report projected 31,720 traffic fatalities across the nation from January to September 2021, a 12 percent increase compared with projections for the same period in 2020. That came on top of an early pandemic surge in U.S. traffic deaths in the first nine months of 2020.

The preliminary data shows 38 states saw an increase in traffic fatalities in the first nine months of 2021, led by Idaho (36 percent), Nevada (30 percent), Oregon (29 percent), Minnesota (25 percent), North Dakota (23.6 percent), Texas (22 percent), New Mexico (19.6 percent), New Jersey (19.2 percent) and Arizona and Illinois (both 18.4 percent.)

The NHTSA said in the report it is continuing to gather and finalize data on crash fatalities for both 2020 and 2021. The report is based primarily on police crash reports.

The projected 12 percent increase is the highest percentage increase over a nine-month period in the 46 years the U.S. Department of Transportation has been recording fatal crash data. The projection of 31,720 deaths is the highest nine-month figure since 2006.

Two states, Mississippi and Wisconsin, saw no increase in traffic fatalities in the nine-month period, and 10 states and the District of Columbia reported a decrease.

The spike in traffic deaths began in 2019 with a 2 percent year-over-year increase. Fatalities increased by 7.2 percent from 2019 to 2020, according to the report. Before 2019, the number of fatalities had fallen for three consecutive years.

The NHTSA cited behavioral research that showed both speeding and traveling without a seatbelt increased during the pandemic.

Calling the increase in highway deaths a crisis, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told The Associated Press last week that he’ll work with President Joe Biden to include billions of dollars in grants in his infrastructure bill as incentives to states to make highways safer.

Improvements could include lower speed limits, safer road design, dedicated bike and bus lanes, better lighting, and more crosswalks.

Buttigieg’s strategy also encourages the use of speed cameras, which the Transportation Department says could provide more equitable enforcement than police traffic stops.

The transportation secretary also cited benefits in the infrastructure law to build out rail and public transit, “if only because every other mode of transportation is safer.”

Also ahead: The NHTSA is moving forward on rulemaking that would require factory installation of emergency braking on all new vehicles, and set standards on crash-avoidance features such as lane-keeping assistance.

There are no firm deadlines on when that will happen.

Auto safety advocates have asked the NHTSA to implement rules ordered by Congress, including rear seat belt reminders, that are long overdue.

“People make mistakes, but human mistakes don’t always have to be lethal. In a well-designed system, safety measures make sure that human fallibility does not lead to human fatalities,” Buttigieg said Tuesday in a statement when the report was released. “That’s what we will be doing for America’s roads with the National Roadway Safety Strategy and the safe system approach that it embraces.”

The trend line is “a nightmare,” Governors Highway Safety Association Executive Director Jonathan Adkins told the AP, but he said the Biden administration appears to be taking the right approach on broad safety fixes.

“We’ve got to do more of what works. Traffic enforcement has got to be part of the solution," he said. "But we’ve got to look at how we build roads. We’ve got to look at the whole system.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting.