Fatal auto crashes have decreased in NC. Here’s why traffic experts aren’t cheering.
This is shaping up to be another deadly year on North Carolina’s roadways, but there’s some encouraging news: Fatal crashes are down from last year, and deaths from drunk driving have dropped significantly.
From Jan. 1 through Oct. 27, there were 1,234 fatal crashes — about 8% fewer than the same period last year, according to state Department of Transportation data.
At the current pace, about 1,600 people will have died on the state’s highways this year — an average of more than four people every day. While that’s lower than the number who died in 2022, it’s considerably higher than any of the 10 years preceding the pandemic.
Mark Ezzell, director of the North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program, said he and other traffic safety experts recognize that there are still far too many deadly crashes. And dangerous drivers are mainly to blame, the data shows.
“We got away with having awful driving habits in 2020,” Ezzell said. “And those have continued.”
He cited speeding as a chief example. While the number of speeding-related fatalities is down about 8% from the same period last year, the 2023 numbers are on pace to be higher than any of the four years before the pandemic. Speeding has played a role in roughly one of every four highway deaths this year.
A 2021 investigation by The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer found that extreme speeding — where people drive 20, 30, even 50 mph over the speed limit — has soared in North Carolina, and that the consequences have been deadly.
Just last month, a woman lost control of her car while driving 113 mph on a 45-mph-road in Durham, police say. The car careened across a median and slammed into a tree, killing 22-year-old Elijah Hawkins-Maynor and injuring two others.
The driver, Morrisville resident Nyasia Palmer, 22, has been charged with murder. Palmer has at least three prior speeding convictions - including one for driving 101 mph in a 65 mph zone, court records show.
Changing the norms around drunk driving
One bright spot in this year’s numbers: Drunk driving deaths have plummeted. From Jan. 1 to Oct. 27, there were 261 alcohol-related deaths on the roadways — about 32% lower than the same period last year.
Some of that may be chalked up to good luck, Ezzell said. But he noted that the Governor’s Highway Safety Program and others have been spreading the word about the dangers of impaired driving — and that driving while drunk is no longer as socially acceptable as it once was.
“We’ve changed the societal norms quite a bit around impaired driving,” he said.
That said, drunk drivers continue to be a threat on the state’s roadways. In September, 12-year-old Leonidas Gheorghe and his parents, Adela and Nicolae, died in a three-car crash on Highway 24/27 in Cabarrus County after a van - driven by a man who police say was impaired - swerved into oncoming traffic.
Many victims weren’t wearing seat belts
Other details of note from the state data for the first 10 months of 2023:
▪ Fatal crashes involving teen drivers are 7% higher than the same period last year.
▪ Pedestrian deaths are down about 12%.
▪ Twenty six bicyclists have been killed on North Carolina roadways - 11 more than the same period last year.
▪ Nearly 400 unbelted drivers and passengers died in the first 10 months of the year. While surveys indicate that about 90% of people wear seat belts in North Carolina, 45% of people killed in crashes last year who had access to a seat belt weren’t wearing one, according to DOT data.
“It just goes to show you what a life-saving device that seat belt really is,” Ezzell said. “… It’s just depressing to see the number of people who aren’t engaged in that very simple behavior of buckling a seat belt.”
Among the recent crash victims who police believe were unbelted were Gregory Porter Jr., 35, and Julian Turner, 30. Both died on Nov. 11 when their Lexus, traveling at high speed, weaved into another vehicle on Interstate 40 in Raleigh.
It will take many things to reduce the death toll: better driving habits, safer roads, strong enforcement, safer cars, Ezzell said.
But safety progress in other sectors offers reason for hope, he said. Passenger jet crashes, which once happened almost every year, are now extremely rare, he noted. It has been 14 years since the last fatal crash involving a U.S. airline.
“If we can do it on that form of transportation, I see no reason we can’t do it on the form of transportation we use every day,” he said.
This story was originally published November 24, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fatal auto crashes have decreased in NC. Here’s why traffic experts aren’t cheering.."
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