Behind Traffic Fatality Reduction in 2008 in Virginia

摘要

In 2008, the U.S. witnessed 9% reduction in traffic fatalities across the nation. In Virginia,205 less persons were killed in traffic crashes in 2008 than in 2007, which is an unprecedentedone-year decline since 1950, following by 170 reduction in 1974 allegedly attributable to oilcrisis. Part of the reduction can probably be ascribed to continuous efforts for safetyimprovements in education, law, policy, technology, and vehicle and road design. However,some portion of the reduction may be attributable to changes in economic conditions in late 2007and 2008. In this regard, this study attempted to find contributing factors to the 2008 reductionin traffic fatalities using Virginia data, and economic indicators (e.g., unemployment rate), crashexposures (e.g., vehicle miles traveled), and other factors (e.g., beer consumption) wereattempted to relate to changes in fatalities using a time-series model. Changes in totalemployment number and unemployment rate were determined to be the best contributing factorsfor changes in annual traffic fatalities. However, only the unemployment rate was able toexplain a portion of the reduction in 2008, 27%.