Traffic Deaths In MA Up 20 Percent In 2021, New Estimates Show

MASSACHUSETTS — There's no question that more people are back on the roads since 2020 and with more cars sadly comes more traffic fatalities.

Traffic deaths reached a 16-year high nationally in 2021, increasing in almost every state - including Massachusetts, federal highway safety officials said this week with the release of early estimates on highway crash deaths last year.

An estimated 42,915 people lost their lives on America's highways last year, up from 38,824 in 2020, a 10.5 percent increase — the largest year-over-year increase in the history of its reports, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement on its website.

In Massachusetts, the number of traffic deaths from 2020 to 2021 jumped from 343 to 413, a more than 20 percent increase. Could a fewer number of drivers on the road in 2020 have something to do with those numbers? Potentially. More people were working from home in 2020 and there was more pressure to get back into the office in 2021.

The 2021 traffic fatality estimates show roads are becoming more deadly across the country. The area with the highest projected increase in traffic fatalities — 19 percent, almost double the national average — is the five-state region of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

In comparison, the five-state region in the nation’s midsection — Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Nebraska — is estimated to see a 3 percent increase in fatalities.

In the five-state region that includes Massachsuetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, highway traffic deaths in 2021 are projected to increase by 14 percent from 2020.

The projected increase comes on top of a record 38,824 traffic fatalities in 2020, at the time the highest number of fatalities since 2007.

Highway safety experts wondered at the time if dangerous driving during the pandemic — including driving at speeds exceeding 200 mph on highways absent the normal traffic loads of people commuting to and from work and going about their lives — was a blip or a long-term pattern.

The highway safety agency said the increased fatality rate per 100 million miles continued in the first quarter of 2021 but decreased in the second, third and fourth quarters.

Still, roads were only moderately safer by that measure.

Motorists drove about 11.2 percent more miles in 2021 than in 2020, or 325.2 billion miles more, as workers returned to the office and businesses reopened. The fatality rate per 100 million miles driven remained almost unchanged, though, down to an estimated 1.33 fatalities in 2021 from 1.34 fatalities per million miles the year prior.

Some other estimates from the report:

• Fatalities in multi-vehicle crashes were up 16 percent.
• Fatalities on urban roads were up 16 percent.
• Fatalities among drivers 65 and older were up 14 percent.
• Pedestrian fatalities were up 13 percent.
• Fatalities in crashes involving at least one large truck were up 13 percent.
• Daytime fatalities were up 11 percent.
• Motorcyclist fatalities were up 9 percent.
• Bicyclist fatalities were up 5 percent.
• Fatalities in speeding-related crashes were up 5 percent.
• Fatalities in police-reported, alcohol-involved crashes were up 5 percent.