U.S. traffic deaths surge at record pace in 2021

NEW YORK, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. traffic deaths surged at a record pace in 2021, with 31,720 people dead from causes related to motor vehicles in the first nine months, a 12 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the latest official data.

The data represented the highest number of fatalities during the first nine months of any year since 2006 and the highest percentage increase in the history of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which has been in use since 1975.

Releasing the data on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) projected that fatalities increased in 38 states, remained flat in two states and decreased in 10 states and the District of Columbia during that period.

"This is a national crisis. We cannot and must not accept these deaths as an inevitable part of everyday life," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was quoted as saying in the release. "People make mistakes, but human mistakes don't always have to be lethal."

Steven Cliff, NHTSA's deputy administrator, said in the release that "we have to change a culture that accepts as inevitable the loss of tens of thousands of people in traffic crashes ... This will require a transformational and collaborative approach to safety on our nation's roads."

Buttigieg also said that "the good news is we now have a strategy, as well as the resources and programs to deliver it, thanks to the President's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The National Roadway Safety Strategy is America's first-ever national, comprehensive plan to significantly reduce deaths and injuries on our roads."

The new estimates came days after the U.S. Department of Transportation released the federal government's first-ever National Roadway Safety Strategy, a roadmap to address the national crisis in roadway fatalities and serious injuries.

"Vehicle automation and assisted driving programs have been proposed as technological solutions to making roads safer, but those developments may be years if not decades away," reported major U.S. news portal Axios.