General facts regarding the driver:
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people ages 2-34. Traffic fatalities accounted for more than 90 percent of transportation-related fatalities.
In 2006 42,642 and in 2005 43,510 people were killed on U.S. highways and approximately 2.6 million were injured each year (NHTSA July 2007 report).
In 2006 and 2005, an average of 118 persons died each day – one every 12 minutes - in motor vehicle crashes (NHTSA July 2007 report).
The economic cost of vehicle crashes in 2000 was $230.6 billion.
Alcohol and Driving:
In 2006, alcohol-related fatalities rose to 17,602 - 41 percent of all traffic fatalities for the year. This is an average of one alcohol-related traffic fatality every 30 minutes (NHTSA August 2007 report.
NHTSA estimates that alcohol was involved in 41 percent of fatal crashes and in 9 percent of all crashes in 2006.
Over 1.46 million drivers were arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of one for every 139 licensed drivers in the United States.
Of the 42,642 fatalities that occurred in 2006, 13,470 (35 percent) occurred in crashes in which at least one driver (including motor cycle operators) had a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher (NHTSA August 2007 report). At even a .02 blood-alcohol concentration, a driver's ability to complete critical driving tasks such as divided attention, complex reaction time, steering, lane-changing, and judgment are affected.
In 2006, a total of 419 (23 percent) of the fatalities among children age 14 and younger occurred in crashes involving alcohol. Of those 419 fatalities, 202 were passengers in vehicles with drivers who had been drinking with BAC levels of .01 or higher.
Seat belts and child restraints:
In 2006, 49 states and the District of Columbia had safety belt use laws in effect.
From 1975 through 2006, it is estimated that safety belts saved 226,567 lives, including 15,383 lives saved in 2006. If all passenger vehicle occupants over age 4 wore safety belts, an additional 5,441lives could have been saved in 2006.
Research has shown that lap/shoulder safety belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front seat occupants (age 5 and older) of passenger cars by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. For light-truck occupants, safety belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 60 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 65 percent.
During 2006, 6983passenger vehicle occupants age 14 and younger were involved in fatal crashes. For those children where restraint use was known, 25 percent were unrestrained; among those who were fatally injured 45 percent were unrestrained
Properly used booster seats - which let older kids shorter than 4 foot 9 inches gain the fullest protection from standard seat belts designed for adults - substantially reduce the risk of injury in a crash.
Drowsy Driving:
Drowsy driving is a serious problem that leads to thousands of automobile crashes each year. Although no driver is immune, the following three population groups are at highest risk: young people (ages 16 to 29), especially males; shift workers whose sleep is disrupted by working at night or working long or irregular hours; and people with untreated sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) and narcolepsy.
Scientific studies show that consumption of even small amounts of alcohol intensifies pre-existing drowsiness.
Sleep is the only real antidote to sleepiness. Scientific studies show that the common stopgap remedies of getting out of a car briefly and engaging in some exercise or cranking up the radio will not counter drowsy driving.
Because young people are disproportionately represented in this category of fatalities, parents of teens and young adults should be urged to let visibly sleepy friends of their own children sleep over, much as one would urge a visibly drunk person to avoid the road until their condition improved.
Pedestrians:
On average, a pedestrian is killed in a traffic crash every 110 minutes and injured in a traffic crash every 9 minutes (NHTSA July 2006 data).
In 2006, there were 61,000 pedestrians injured and 4784 were killed in traffic crashes in the United States, representing two percent of all people injured in traffic crashes and 11 percent of all traffic fatalities.
Most pedestrian fatalities in 2005 occurred in urban areas (74 percent), at non-intersection locations (80 percent), in normal weather conditions (89 percent), and at night (67 percent).
Males accounted for 70 percent of all traffic fatalities, 69 percent of all pedestrian fatalities and 88 percent of all pedalcyclist fatalities in 2006. In 2006, the fatality crash involvement rate for 100,000 population was almost three times higher for male drivers than for females.
In approximately 49 percent of pedestrian fatality crashes in 2006 alcohol was involved. Of those, in 32 percent of cases, it was the pedestrian who had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.
Motorcyclist, Bicyclists and Pedalcyclists:
The 4,810 motorcycle fatalities in 2006 were 234 more than in 2005. Motorcycle injury related crashes increased by 1,000 with 88,000 reported in 2006 (NHTSA July 2007 report).
More than 49,000 bicyclists have died in traffic crashes in the United States since 1932 -- the first year that bicycle fatalities were recorded.
An estimated 137 motorcyclists have died I traffic crashes since the enactment of the Highway Safety and National; traffic Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966.
In 2006, 773 pedal cyclists were killed and an additional 44,000 were injured in traffic crashes. Pedal cyclist deaths accounted for nearly 2 percent of all traffic fatalities, and pedal cyclists made up nearly 2 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes during the year.
The number of pedal cyclist fatalities in 2006 was 1.7 percent lower than the 786 fatalities reported in 2005. The highest number of pedal cyclist fatalities ever recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) was 1,003 in 1975.
In 1995, the average age of pedal cyclists killed in traffic crashes was 29.7; in 2005 the average age of those killed was 38.5. In contrast, in 1995 the average age of those injured was 22.7 and the average age of those injured in 2005 was 29.
One seventh (14 percent) of the pedal cyclists killed in traffic crashes in 2006 were between 5 and 15 years old. Universal bicycle helmet use by children ages 4 to 15 would prevent 39,000 to 45,000 head injuries, and 18,000 to 55,000 scalp and face injuries annually.
Bicycle helmets are 85-88 percent effective in mitigating head and brain injuries, making the use of helmets the single most effective way to reduce head injuries and fatalities resulting from bicycle crashes.
Despite the fact that 70 to 80 percent of all fatal bicycle crashes involve head injuries, only about 20-25 percent of all bicyclists wear bicycle helmets.
Data provided to update this site was obtained from the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) website http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/cats/Index.aspx or http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/cats/listpublications.aspx?Id=C&ShowBy=DocType for publications.
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