1998 Traffic Fatalities Decline; Alcohol-Related Deaths Reach Record Low

1998 Traffic Fatalities Decline; Alcohol-Related Deaths Reach Record Low

1998 Traffic Fatalities Decline; Alcohol-Related Deaths Reach Record Low

NHTSA
May 27, 1999

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NHTSA 23-99

Thursday, May 27, 1999 Contact: Tim Hurd

Tel. No. (202) 366-9550

Traffic fatalities declined to their lowest number in four years and alcohol-related traffic fatalities reached a new record low in 1998, U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater announced today.

"Safety is President Clinton's highest transportation priority and these statistics show us that his commitment is paying important safety dividends," Secretary Slater said. "Safety is everyone's responsibility, and we all can benefit by buckling up and exercising caution, especially now as we enter the Memorial Day weekend."

Nearly two-thirds of all drivers and passengers who died on the nation's highways are not wearing their seat belts, according to preliminary figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)

Under President Clinton's initiative to increase seat belt use, if 85 percent of drivers buckle up, 4,000 lives would be saved annually and 100,000 injuries would be prevented. Currently, 70 percent of all Americans buckle up.

Highlights of the preliminary FARS assessment include:

Overall, highway fatalities decreased 1.3 percent, from 42,013 in 1997 to 41,480 in 1998.

The traffic fatality rate remained steady at 1.6 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) while vehicle miles traveled were up 2 percent from 1997.

The number of crash-related injuries declined by 4.4 percent from 3.399 million in 1997 to 3.251 million in 1998.

Fatalities associated with large trucks dropped 1.8 percent from 5,398 in 1997 to an estimated 5,302 in 1998.

Pedestrian deaths were down 1.3 percent to 5,284 in 1998, and motorcyclist fatalities rose slightly from 2,147 in 1997 to 2,243 in 1998.

Alcohol was involved in 15,936 traffic fatalities or 38.4 percent of last year's total fatalities, down from 16,189 or 38.6 in 1997.

Sixty-two percent of those killed in crashes last year were not wearing seat belts.

The 1998 fatalities are 19 percent lower than they were in 1979, when 51,093 people lost their lives on the nation's highways.

"We've been saying it for years and it's still true: Buckle up and increase your chance of survival," said NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez, M.D.

NHTSA annually collects crash statistics from 50 states and the District of Columbia to produce the annual report on traffic fatality trends. The final 1998 report, pending completion of data collection and quality control verification, will be available in July. Summaries of the preliminary report are available from the NHTSA Office of Public and Consumer Affairs at (202) 366-9550 and on the Internet at: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov.

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(Note: NHTSA said it will in the future report alcohol-related fatalities only as rounded to the nearest percentage. For example, under the new reporting scheme, the 1997 rate would be rounded to 39 percent and 1998, to 38 percent.)