After years of steady decline, the highway death rate in Florida is now rising at a steady and dramatic rate. The figures, supplied by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, show a disturbing trend.
Florida’s highway death rate in 2015 increased by 8.3 percent compared to the number of deaths in 2014. Traffic injuries between 2014 and 2015 increased by 5.4 percent. The only figures that have gone down in Florida are the pedestrian death rates by 8.2 percent and bicycle deaths by 8.8 percent.
Nationally, the highway death rate had been on a steady decline over the past ten years with really dramatic changes after the economic downturn of 2008. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the death rate went from a high of 43,510 deaths in 2005 to a low of 32,479 deaths in 2011; a drop of almost 34 percent. However, figures now show a small but steady rise nationwide.
The fall in the highway death rate had several reasons:
All of those things worked to lower the death rate but now several things are working to increase the death rate:
Florida has all of those issues and more:
The greater population of full time residents and visitors combined with the epidemic of distracted drivers on Florida’s highways means there will more chances to be involved in a crash. Florida’s drivers need to pay more attention to the road and urge their legislators to make the anti-texting law a primary offense with meaningful penalties.