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After a deadly year on the roads, states push for safety over speed
As more Americans start commuting to work and hitting the roads after a year indoors, they ll be returning to streets that have gotten deadlier.
Last year, an estimated 42,000 people died in motor vehicle crashes and 4.8 million were injured. That represents an 8% increase over 2019, the largest year-over-year increase in nearly a century even though the number of miles driven fell by 13%, according to the National Safety Council.
The emptier roads led to more speeding, which led to more fatalities, said Leah Shahum, executive director of the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit organization that works on reducing traffic deaths. Ironically, congested traffic, the bane of car commuters everywhere, had been keeping people safer before the pandemic, Shahum said.
After deadly year, California pushes road safety over speed latimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from latimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A version of this article first appeared in Streetsblog.
The death rate from car crashes in the US spiked 24% in 2020 compared to the previous year a historic rise linked to an equally historic reduction in congestion that allowed the remaining drivers to race around recklessly on roads designed to prioritize speed above all else.
According to preliminary data from the National Safety Council a widely respected nonprofit that releases its estimates of annual roadway fatalities about two years earlier than the federal government about 42,060 people lost their lives to the US traffic violence pandemic in 2020, even as the coronavirus pandemic simultaneously ravaged the nation.