Traffic Fatalities Up As Tennesseans Drive More in 2010

Traffic deaths are up in Tennessee for the first time in five years. But state officials say that’s because Tennesseans are spending more time on the road.

2009 marked the first time in decades the state posted less than a thousand fatalities on its roadways. But Tennessee will jump back over a thousand deaths when officials close the books on 2010, according to projections.

That increase isn’t the whole story though, says Kendell Poole, of the Governor’s Highway Safety Office. He says the average mile of driving is still getting safer – it’s just that people are driving more.

“So there’s more cars driving more miles – that means our fatality rate will actually go down, as a result, so there will be less deaths per vehicle-miles traveled this year. So we can’t say it’s a bad year just because we’ve seen a slight increase in fatalities, because we’ve seen more miles driven.”

Poole says the state is wrestling with certain trouble areas, particularly distracted driving and motorcycle safety. But more Tennesseans are wearing seatbelts, which Poole figures means more lives saved in coming years.

—

Poole:

“Every statistic tells a story, and even though we are judged in the Governor’s Highway Safety Office on statistics, and numbers mean everything, we can never forget the fact that every number that we talk about represents a life.
“And there’s a law-enforcement officer somewhere across the state of Tennessee that has to go knock on somebody’s door and say ‘You’ve lost a father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter because of this.’
“So when we’re looking at numbers, we always want to… humanize that element and make sure that we understand that what we’re doing isn’t just about numbers.”

–