Traffic Deaths up 14% already in 2015

“I’m sure you see it all the time. People staring at their laps while driving down the road. They are trying to text and hide their actions from prying eyes of the law.”

As reported by US News this week “Traffic deaths (rose) sharply in first 6 months of 2015; better economy, lower gas prices (are) cited”. You may be asking “How much could it have possible risen?” try 14% already. That does not even take into account the months July and August which are the two most notorious for traffic deaths. As the National Safety Council released all of their mid-year data this week some other troubling numbers were found buried within.

Injuries are on the rise too, but at an even higher pace. Injuries related to motor vehicle accidents are up by a third, more than double the increase of deaths.  The explanation from the NSC that cheaper gas and a better economy does not hold up too well either when scrutinized. If more people were just driving their cars more, you would expect the numbers to rise accordingly but not here though. The increased traffic this year only went up 3.4%! Why is there such a huge gap between those two numbers?

Well the answer may be our own inability to follow laws. This year we may have the highest number of traffic deaths since 2007. Which is interesting since the first “distracted driving” law (the laws that made using a cell phone while driving illegal.) in the US went into effect in late 2006. The majority of the distracted driving laws went into effect in 2009 and after. Which almost sounds like the law laws worked. Our society saw a problem that was killing people and passed laws to make our lives safer. After the laws passed the numbers went down. Perfect!

Well, not exactly perfect.  According to the US Dept. of Transportation “At any given daylight moment across America, approximately 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving, a number that has held steady since 2010”. So even with all these new laws, the amount of people using their phones on the road has not gone down. So what has changed? How well people are hiding their use.

The more and more people continue breaking the laws that curb distracted driving, the more inventive people are becoming hiding it. I’m sure you see it all the time. People staring at their laps while driving down the road. They are trying to text and hide their actions from prying eyes of the law. So now instead of just being a little distracted by their phones, drivers are completely ignoring their surrounds too engrossed in their quest of breaking the law to care about anything else much less your safety.

The answer? I wish I had one. We have done what we can as a society. We have passed laws and created better technology to help with distracted driving. The thing is though, none of this matters if we are still arrogant enough to believe that some laws are created for everyone else. I did too. I told myself “I’m good enough to do two things at once.” Well I’m not and neither are you I would bet. Let’s all do each other a favor and just put the phone down when we get in the car.