Missouri led the country’s biggest decline in highway fatalities in 15 years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported this month. Missouri recorded 161 fewer highway deaths in 2006 than in 2005. Results were compiled among states with 1,000 or more traffic fatalities.
Florida recorded 144 fewer traffic fatalities over the two-year span, a decrease of 4.1%. The Sunshine State was one of 27 states reporting decreased traffic fatalities. Of the 10 states with 1,000 or more fatalities in 2006, Florida ranked fifth behind Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
Overall, the United States sustained 868 fewer traffic fatalities in 2006, the biggest decline in number and percentage since 1992, the NHTSA reported. “To me, that is 868 families that didn’t get the terrible call that a loved one was killed in a motor vehicle accident,” NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason said.
While Missouri was one of 27 states that saw decreases in highway deaths, neighboring Kansas saw the third-highest percentage increase nationally. Forty more people died on Kansas highways in 2006 than 2005, an increase of 9.3%. Only two other states had bigger percentage increases.
• Installation of 500 miles of median guard cable on busy highways, including Interstates 70 and 44. The state spent $50 million on guard cable in 2005.
• The “Smooth Roads Initiative,” which spent $400 million on resurfacing 2,200 miles of highways. The program also added brighter road signs and surface rumble strips road shoulders.
Missouri officials said statistics prove median cables make a difference.
“It catches almost every car that tries to go through them,” said Jeff Briggs, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation. “It has saved a number of lives.” Briggs said the state cut its cross-median fatalities to 26 last year from 50 in 2005.
In Kansas, officials attributed the state’s traffic-fatality increase to a rise in motorcycle deaths, a trend reflected by the nation’s 5.1% increase. Kansas had 27 more motorcycle deaths in 2006, which accounts for about two-thirds of the state’s increase in fatalities, said Pete Bodyk, chief of the Traffic Safety Bureau at the Kansas Department of Transportation. He said the trend stemmed from many older drivers in their 40s and 50s returning to motorcycles after not riding for years.
http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/202005.html
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