US Faces Growing Crisis Over High Traffic Deaths, NTSB Chair Says

The United States must address a growing public-health crisis over traffic deaths that remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday.

“Unlike most developed nations, U.S. roadways have grown more deadly over the last several decades,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a board meeting on its probe into a 2023 vehicle crash that killed six people. “By raw numbers, the U.S. has more motor-vehicle deaths than any other developed country. We also have the highest death rate.”

The January 2023 crash happened in Louisville, New York between a bus transporting workers and a box truck. Homendy said there was insufficient federal oversight from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, adding, “FMCSA’s inadequate oversight played an outsized role.”

The Transportation Department did not immediately comment.

In September, the department estimated 18,720 people died in motor-vehicle traffic crashes during the first six months of 2024, down 3.2% from the first half of 2023. The 2024 first-half total is still higher, however, than pre-pandemic levels, when just over 17,000 people were killed in the first half of 2019.

“We are in the midst of a growing public health crisis on our roads,” Homendy said.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has lamented how little attention thousands of U.S. traffic deaths receive compared to aviation incidents in which no one is injured.

U.S. traffic deaths jumped 10.5% in 2021 to 42,915, the highest number of people killed on American roads in a single year since 2005, while the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed rose to the highest number in more than four decades.

The fatality rate fell in early 2024 but was still higher for that three-month period than in any pre-pandemic year since 2008.

As U.S. roads became less crowded during the pandemic, some motorists perceived police as less likely to issue tickets, experts said, resulting in riskier driving.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Rod Nickel)