Traffic crash deaths increasing after years of decline

Dayton Lawson was driving down U.S. 59 in Mound City, Mo., on a Saturday afternoon in June when, for some reason, his F-350 crossed the center line and went up an embankment, ejecting the 57-year-old through the passenger window.

Lawson died at the scene, adding to a dubious distinction for Holt County, north of St. Joseph: It had the highest traffic crash fatality rate in the state, at least in 2014. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, crash deaths in Holt County were more than 110 per 100,000 population that year. Holt County actually has fewer than 5,000 people, but it’s the rate that counts.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” said a surprised Sheriff Scott Wedlock.

Traffic deaths across the U.S. had declined steeply in recent years — by 31 percent from 2000 to 2013 — but now they are climbing.

 

 

The traffic safety administration estimates 35,200 people died in crashes in 2015, up from 32,675 in 2014. The National Safety Council says that nearly 8 percent jump is the largest year-over-year percentage increase in 50 years.

Vehicle fatalities in Missouri have been climbing at a faster pace, from 757 in 2013 to 870 last year. That’s a 15 percent increase. And as of Wednesday, traffic fatalities in Missouri were up 5 percent over the same period last year.

“I can attribute that to distraction,” said Sgt. Collin Stosberg, spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol. “Cellphones. We have a wealth of information but a poverty of attention.”

Kansas bans texting for all drivers. Missouri bans texting for drivers 21 and younger, but the state also requires drivers to operate a vehicle in a careful and prudent manner, so potentially anyone can be cited for texting.

Jackson County led Missouri in the actual number of traffic fatalities in 2014 with 60, followed by St. Louis County with 53 and the city of St. Louis with 37. Clay County was in the top 10 with 18.

Kansas crash fatalities dropped 10 percent from 428 in 2005 to 385 in 2014. The number of Kansas fatalities in 2015 was not available, but the five-state region that includes Kansas saw an 8 percent increase in 2015.

 

 

Wichita’s Sedgwick County led the state in the number of crash fatalities in 2014 with 50, followed by Topeka’s Shawnee County with 22, Johnson County with 21 and Wyandotte County with 16. Lawrence’s Douglas County was ninth with eight.

The four counties with the highest traffic death rates in Kansas were all out west. Wichita County, with a population of about 2,200, had a whopping traffic death rate of nearly 184 per 100,000 people in 2014.

And Missouri and Kansas each had a higher overall traffic-crash death rate than the national average of 10.25 people per 100,000 people. In Missouri the rate in 2014 was 12.63, and in Kansas it was 13.26.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month released a study, using data from 2013, comparing traffic crash deaths in the U.S. with those in 19 other “high income” nations. The U.S. came out on the bottom with a fatality rate more than twice the international average.

U.S. traffic deaths fell nearly one-third from 2000 to 2013, the CDC said. But that still meant more than 32,000 Americans died in wrecks in 2013. Now the numbers are rising again.

“As the economy has improved and gas prices have fallen, more Americans are driving more miles,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said in announcing the 2015 count earlier this month. “But that only explains part of the increase. Ninety-four percent of crashes can be tied back to a human choice or error.”

The main culprits in traffic fatalities are failure to wear seat belts, alcohol, speeding and distraction.

Failure to use seat belts and car seats contributed to more than 9,500 U.S. deaths, the CDC study said. Speeding contributed to about the same number. Drunken driving contributed to more than 10,000 deaths. Erin Sauber-Schatz, the lead author of the CDC report, said distracted driving contributes to about 10 percent of fatal crashes.

Of the countries compared, only one — Canada — had a bigger problem with alcohol-involved deaths.

When it comes to using seat belts, the French have bested us with a 99 percent compliance rate for front-seat occupants. The average of the countries compared was 94 percent. In the U.S., it was 87 percent. It was nearly 86 percent in Kansas in 2014. In Missouri, seat belt use actually dropped to 79 percent.

“Anywhere between 65 and 70 percent of our deaths each year are unrestrained occupants,” Stosberg said. “We still have people driving and riding in vehicles and they’re not buckled up.”

Thirty-four states have primary seat belt laws, meaning a motorist can be stopped for not wearing one. Kansas is one of them. Missouri is not.

Lawson, who was ejected from his pickup truck in Mound City, was not wearing a seat belt.

“Despite our vehicles being safer than ever before, we still lose 100 people every day in car crashes,” the National Safety Council said in a statement this month, “and we are on the wrong side of the trend.”

This story was originally published July 16, 2016 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Traffic crash deaths increasing after years of decline."