Georgia Injury Law Blog
Preliminary statistics by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show a drop in the number of people killed nationwide in auto accidents during the first 6 months of 2024. This is the 9th consecutive quarterly drop in car accident fatality numbers. It is important to better understand why this drop in auto accident wrongful deaths occurred and to continue to work to improve the numbers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released encouraging news in the form of car accident data for the first half of 2024. The statistics show that there was a 3% drop in the number of auto accident fatalities during the first 6 months of 2024, compared to the same period of time in 2023. The data reveals that there were 18,720 deaths in car accidents between January and July of 2024. This was a drop from the 19,330 deaths that were recorded during the first 6 months of 2023.
This drop came even as there was a slight increase in the number of vehicle miles traveled by Americans in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period of time last year. This year, Americans traveled approximately 0. 8% higher number of vehicle miles or 13.1 billion extra miles, compared to the same period of time in 2023. Overall, 32 states recorded a drop in auto accident deaths during the first half of 2024. This included the state of Georgia which recorded 696 deaths in car accidents during the first six months of 2024, in comparison with 762 deaths during the same period of time last year.