Fatalities on U.S. streets last year were higher than previously estimated, and experts say they don?t know why Safety experts issued a dire report in late 2016: After years of going down, traffic deaths in the U.S. were on track to dramatically increase from the year before?which was also a particularly deadly year. Now the final data is in, and the figure is even worse than the estimates.
During the first nine months of last year, 27,875 people died in crashes, compared to 25,808 fatalities during the same period of 2015?an increase of about 8 percent. And the experts say they can?t explain why.
Historically any kind of spike in traffic deaths correlates with an increase in vehicle-miles traveled (VMT). Over the last few years, VMT has been increasing in the U.S. But when the rate of deaths are compared to the VMT increase, the data doesn?t line up: vehicle-miles traveled only increased by 3 percent during the same period. And the increase in deaths was consistent across the country?not a single region had a safer year than the one before, regardless of VMT.
NHTSA
The percentage change in traffic deaths from 2015 to 2016 for the first nine months of each year

Even the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Mark Rosekind, can?t explain what's happening. "We still have to figure out what is underlying those lives lost," Rosekind told the Los Angeles Times. "If it was simple, we would already know that.&q...