Kentucky Highway Fatalities Lowest Since 1999 - Or Not

Fewer deaths is good. But a governor in a tough re-election campaign taking credit for an improvement that may have more to do with a shitty economy is bad.

Kentucky highway fatalities dropped to an 11-year low in 2010.

The Kentucky Office of Highway Safety (KOHS) today released final statistics for 2010. There were 760 fatalities last year, 31 fewer than in 2009 and the lowest total since 1999, when the death toll was 729. Fatalities declined for the fifth consecutive year.

“The good news is that 31 fewer lives were lost,” Gov. Steve Beshear said. “The bad news is that people are still needlessly dying on Kentucky highways. We will not rest until the number is zero, because one fatality is one too many.”

Gov. Beshear’s Executive Committee on Highway Safety is working to update and implement the state’s strategic highway safety plan, which focuses on four critical elements: engineering, education, enforcement and emergency response.

Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock, the governor’s designated highway safety representative and chair of the committee, said the data-driven, 2010-2014 comprehensive plan includes collaboration from stakeholders at every level — federal, state, local and private — to identify safety needs and guide investment decisions.

“If our effort results in just one life being saved, it will have been worth it”, Hancock said.

Of the 760 fatalities last year, 598 were in motor vehicles. Of those killed, 62.5 percent were not buckled up and 20 percent of fatalities involved alcohol. Motorcyclists accounted for 78 fatalities, with 57.7 not wearing helmets and 15.4 percent of fatal motorcycle crashes involved alcohol.

Here’s the problem: the number of deaths means little in the absence of data on traffic totals. Was the total number of miles driven on Kentucky highways also at an 11-year low? Then the number of deaths is probably not an improvement. Look at this list of number of traffic deaths for the last 12 years:

1999 729
2000 823
2001 843
2002 915
2003 931
2004 964
2005 985
2006 913
2007 864
2008 826
2009 791
2010 760

Notice anything? From 1999 to 2005, deaths steadily increased. Then they suddenly started dropping - by as much as five percent per year ever since.

Remember 1999? It was the last year of the Clinton Prosperity, right before the bottom dropped out of the economy when the Internet Bubble burst.

Even with the increase in population in Kentucky since 1999, I'd be willing to bet that between higher gas prices and much higher unemployment substantially fewer miles were driven on Kentucky highways in 2010 than in 1999. That would mean that highway deaths per miles driven are higher - maybe substantially higher - than in 1999.

I could be wrong. But based on the sparse data given in the press release, there's no way to know. I'd like to think that if the miles driven comparison also shows a significant drop in deaths, that would have been mentioned in the press release. That it wasn't makes me suspicious.

Twain warned us there are lies, damn lies and Statistics. He forgot to mention election-year press releases.