Thousands of Americans are dying in
terrible car crashes every year

The rate of car crash fatalities varies across countries

The World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013 estimates 1.24 million traffic deaths a year – nearly triple the UN’s estimate of annual murders, and twenty times the estimated annual total of deaths in wars. Only 28 countries have adequate laws that address all five risk factors (speed, drink–driving, helmets, seat-belts and child restraints). The average rate was 17.4 per 100,000 population. Low-income countries now have the highest annual road traffic fatality rates, at 24.1 per 100 000 population, while the rate in high-income countries is lowest, at 9.2 per 100000 population. Compare to other countries, U.S. is relatively safe. However, there were 30,057 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2013 in which 32,719 deaths occurred.

Source: World Health Organization

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The fatal motor vehicle crashes rate in the United States

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According to the line chart, six states with the highest highway fatality rates per 100,000 people in 2013 are Montana (22.6), Mississippi (20.5), North Dakota (20.5), West Virginia (17.9) and Alabama and Oklahoma (17.6).The lowest highway fatality rates in 2013 were posted in the District of Columbia (3.1), Massachusetts (4.9), New Jersey (6.1), New York (6.1) and Rhode Island (6.2). The wide different death rate may due to different population in each states and disparate local road law. Montana is the nation’s crash-death capital; its fatal car-accident rate is more than many other states. Compare to Montana, a significant decrease is observed in the death rate of Wyoming. The decreasing are attributed to the reduction in the number of commercial carrier crashes, multivehicle crashes and alcohol-related crashes.

Source:Highway Loss Data Institute

Human error causes crashes happen

The report from NHTSA shows “human error is the critical reason for 93 percent of crashes.” For instance, data from Missouri review of state's 716 fatal crashes in 2011 shows that only 11 fatal crashes related to equipment or road failures while the other 705 fatal crashes involved human error. The human error are typically some combination of speeding, drinking, bad lane changes, and so on.

Source: Images from Bing picture

Bad driving behavior causes fatal crashes

The map demonstrates the leading cause within each state. Data from Auto Insurancee Center took the total number of crashes associated with each of these causes by state and divided that number by each state’s population to arrive at a per-capita metric for accurate comparison. There are nine kind of bad behaviors leading to fatal crashes.

Source: NHTSA Fatal Accident Reporting System / Auto Insurance Center

Which causes the most fatal crashes?

Data from Auto Insurance center indicates that the critical reason which could leading to fatal crashes is failure to stay in proper line. Majority of the states have this problem.

Failure to yield right of way lead to many fatal crashes

One of the most common causes of traffic accidents is the failure to yield at a traffic light. People have been involved in a failure to yield accident may because of they making a poor judgment or they don’t think about what they’re doing at all.

Reckless or careless driving causes lots of road accidents

Data from Auto Insurance center shows that Arkansas has the most deadly reckless drivers. Minnesota, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida also have very high road accidents related to reckless driving.

Three critical reason causes the fatal crashes

Every year, many people are killed as a result of drunk drivers.The CDC has reported that 31% of all U.S. highway fatalities in 2013 were the result of alcohol-impaired driving.
29% of 2013 highway fatalities related to speeding crashes. These crashes include driving too fast for existing conditions, exceeding the posted speed limit and racing.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in the first three decades of Americans lives. In 2013, 21,268 people got injured in a crash.

source:Highway Loss Data Institute

Fatal crashes rate by age group and gender

The scatter chart shows the distribution of mean population and crash fatalities by age group for females and males respectively. Overall, the age group older than 85 and age group 20-24 are the age group suffers highest Motor vehicle crash. Male motor vehicle crash fatalities were higher for than females in all age groups. Among females, the age group 20-24 had the highest number of fatalities followed by the over than 82 age group.

source:Highway Loss Data Institute

Click on the button below to see the different crashes death rate by different impaired

Click the buttons to see the comparison of Crash Fatalities by Sex and Age Group

Three tips for avoiding car crashes in the future

1. Changing bad driving behavior could reduce the risk of death in a car crash. The charts above indicate that bad human behavior would cause needless accident. In order to avoid accidents , following the rules and regulations of the road is very important. Driver should never drink and drive. Drinking too much will impairs people's reaction time and judgement. Speeding is a serious problem causing crashes, therefore, tailor driving speed to the conditions is necessary. People could minimize car accidents by maintaining a constant speed and leaving enough distance with other vehicles.
2. People should keep in mind that don't use the cell phone or eat food or others things which will affect the safe driving condition. Distracted driving is a bad driving behavior. When people couldn't give full attention to the road, the accident crash may happen to you. Lots of people using cell phone or eating food while driving, which is a seriously dangerous problem could effect on your attention on driving. For a save driving trip, people should fully pay attention to drive and actively scan the road.
3. Using seat belt is a vital part of safe driving and the most effective way to protect people from unwanted death and injury. Always make sure using the seat belts while driving. Wearing a seat belt can reduce the risk of fatal crashes and injury,therefore, using seat belts in passenger vehicles is very essential.

Visualization Created by Luying Wu, www.luyingwu.com

Background Image, Photograph by Luying Wu