Author: Marcia Evans
First, the good news: More than 80 percent of drivers say they are good drivers.
Now the bad news: That hasn’t prevented them from having traffic crashes. There were more than 276,000 traffic crashes in North Carolina in 2021.
In honor of National Traffic Safety Month, OSBM has created a dashboard where you can look at traffic safety trends in North Carolina and in the county where you live. The data is provided by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Here are three things to check out on the dashboard.
Trends in Crashes vs. Trends in Injuries and Fatalities
The chart above shows the increase in the number of crashes over the last 50+ years in our state. Note the steeper rise in the 2010s followed by a dip in 2020, when people were driving less. That drop-off has reversed as the COVID-19 restrictions ended and people began traveling more.
The rise in traffic crashes mirrors the rise in population. Crashes increased 26.7% between 2001 and 2021, while the state’s population rose 28.7% in the same period.
The trend in traffic injuries during that same period, however, does not mirror the rise in crashes. Traffic crash injuries had mostly been on the decline since 1999 before leveling off in the latter half of the 2010s. After a dip in 2020, injuries appear to be on track to return to that pre-2020 level.
While traffic injuries have been on the decline over much of the last ten years, fatalities have been on the rise since 2013. This includes steep increases in fatalities even during years when the number of accidents declined.
Not All Injuries Are People in Cars
Not all injuries in crashes are people inside a car or truck. Almost 7% of traffic injuries in 2021 were to someone not in an enclosed vehicle. More than half of those were injuries to someone on a motorcycle.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has indicated that national traffic fatality data for 2022 shows increases in fatalities among pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists even as the overall traffic fatality rate has fallen from the prior year.
Don't Forget the Local Data
LINC is great for looking at local traffic data too! The drop-down menu at the top of the dashboard will let you to select individual county data. After all, roads and driving conditions vary in different parts of the state.
For example, eight counties had no reported pedestrian-involved crashes in 2021. While Mecklenburg County had the largest number of pedestrian-involved crashes that year, Durham County had the highest ratio of pedestrian-involved crashes compared to the number of registered drivers in the county.
If we look at the ratio of traffic crashes compared to the number of registered drivers, Pitt County came in at the top. Yancy County had the lowest rate of crashes to registered drivers.
Want more data? By clicking the “view source” link for the visualizations you can dig deeper. Explore trends in crashes involving alcohol or speeding. Or track changes in bus accidents over time. Share the data on your favorite social media platform to increase awareness.
August is National Traffic Safety Month
Unfortunately, data isn’t enough to keep drivers—and the pedestrians and bicyclists around them—safe. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to traffic crashes and how serious the crash may be. However, the NHTSA says that human error is the cause of more than 90% of accidents.
For more resources on traffic safety in North Carolina, the NC Department of Transportation’s Traffic Safety Data & Engineering.