Justin Westbrook
8/18/15 9:00pm

Since 2007, there has been a steady decrease in traffic deaths year over year. A new report by The National Safety Council claims that trend has reversed, with traffic-related deaths dramatically increasing over last year in just the first six months of 2015. What happened?

The last time traffic deaths reached 40,000 in a year was 2007, but 2015 is on a steady pace to surpass that number, hitting just under 19,000 through May, according to U.S. News. With seven months to go, including the two typically heaviest months for fatalities being July and August, things are looking bleak for the American driver.

The question now is why is there such a drastic increase? For one, Americans are driving a lot more this year due to lower gas prices and a slightly better economy. Drivers travelled a collective 1.26 trillion miles over the first five months of the year, an increase from last year’s 1.23 trillion over the same time period. However, a 3.4 percent increase in mileage year over year does not equate to a 14 percent increase in fatalities, so there must be other issues at play.

That’s where it gets confusing, as overall drivers seem to be in a safer position when they hit the roads, as President of the National Safety Council Deborah A.P. Hersman* in the report puts it:

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Absolution > Justin Westbrook 8/18/15 11:59pm

I work at a fairly large town ER, tons of tons of our traumas are MVC’s. Nine times out of ten it’s someone running a red light due to using a cell phone or fucking off in some way and they ram into someone or run off the road. They need to increase punishments on crashes due to cell phone use dramatically. I watched a lady lose a leg today over this stupid crap, some teenager was texting and ran the lady off the road where she rolled multiple times and it mangled her leg in worse ways than you see in a SAW movie. When you walk into a bay and see the insides of a persons legs/arms/stomach etc hanging out all over a stretcher and the family crying their heads off you tend to have a severe dislike for people who clearly think that texting is more important than someone elses safety. Cars need to come equipped with some form of anti cellular zone that locks out cell phone while a vehicle is in motion.