Traffic fatalities fall in North Carolina, but distractions abound
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Traffic fatalities continue to increase and distracted driving is one of the main reasons, according to the latest available National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.
State of play: North Carolina counted 1,630 fatalities in 2022, the latest data available, a rate of 15.2 out of every 100,000 drivers.
- North Carolina's rate dipped in the 2000s but began to slowly rise in the last decade, spurred in part by a spike in the pandemic era.
The big picture: About 3,300 people died nationwide in crashes attributed to distracted driving in 2022, and another 289,000 were injured, the new data shows.
- Over 62,000 crashes involved distracted cell phone usage in 2022 alone.
Caveat: These stats likely underestimate the problem because crash data often relies on drivers self-reporting distractions to law enforcement, National Safety Council executive vice president of safety leadership and advocacy Mark Chung tells Axios.