Highway deaths continue to mount, though U.S. roadways are safer than ever

A horrific crash that killed five people on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last Sunday represents only a fraction of a percentage point of the annual death toll on the nation’s highways.

Highway design has advanced dramatically and features such as seat belts, airbags and stability controls have made vehicles safer than ever, driving the annual death toll down nearly 15% over the past five decades. Still, tens of thousands of Americans continue to die on the nation’s highways every year.

In 2017 and 2018 alone, 74,033 people died in crashes on U.S. highways. That far exceeded the 58,022 U.S. military deaths in the entire Vietnam War.

“The death toll is a staggering number,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “If we had that number of deaths in any other area, whether in transportation or any other public health arena like diseases, governments would be mobilized to address the problem and there would be public demand for action, and yet we just don’t see that kind of urgency in motor vehicles.”

Authorities have yet to determine the cause of the Jan. 5 turnpike crash. Authorities said a tour bus driver lost control while traveling west down a mountainous section of highway in Mt. Pleasant Township, triggering a chain-reaction crash that involved three tractor-trailers and a passenger car.

Most fatal accidents can be traced back to driver error, safety experts say.

“The big three that are responsible for 94% of them are alcohol-impaired driving, speeding and lack of belt use,” Rader said.

State police are working with federal investigators seeking answers in the turnpike crash.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators descended on the area shortly after the crash and have spent a week combing over the wreckage and reviewing data. They are scrutinizing roadway design, driver performance, mechanical data, road conditions and more in an effort to learn what caused the crash and determine whether there are lessons to be learned to make highway travel safer.

The entire process could take up to two years.

Making roads safer

The site of the crash, near mile marker 86 in Mt. Pleasant Township, is part of the first section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike that opened in 1940. Officials boast that the road was the nation’s first super highway, a project that set the pace for the interstate highway system that would come along after World War II.

The Mt. Pleasant section of the highway includes “S curves” that wind through a mountainous area down a steep grade. The speed limit drops from 70 mph to 55 mph in those sections.

Over the years, turnpike officials say they’ve made a number of safety upgrades in that section.

Improvements include adding an eastbound truck climbing lane in October 1981, full reconstruction of the roadway and adding a third westbound lane in November 2005, and resurfacing the westbound lane last year.

A number of design and safety innovations developed over the years have made highways safer, said Ken Kobetsky, a retired highway engineer with six decades of experience in highway safety, most recently with the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.

Among the improvements that have helped save lives are breakaway signposts, guardrails and concrete barriers designed to keep vehicles on the road and from flipping over, pavement edges sloped to allow drivers who veer off the road to maintain control and return to their lanes and ramps designed for maximum control when drivers enter and exit roadways, he said.

Nonetheless, the challenges of traveling through the roughly 10-mile stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike that passes through Mt. Pleasant Township are evident in PennDOT crash statistics.

PennDOT records show there were about 170 crashes there between 2014 and 2018, the most recent year figures were available. The crashes were split about equally in each direction — 87 happened in the westbound lanes and 78 were in the eastbound lanes.

About 50 people suffered injuries in 37 of those accidents.

About 55 heavy trucks were involved in 49 crashes.

There have been two other crashes in almost the exact spot of the Jan. 5 crash, one in 2014 and another in 2017. Both involved a single passenger vehicle, and no injuries were reported. Another 12 crashes have happened within a mile of last Sunday’s crash.