Personal Injury . The number of road users killed each year in the U.S. fell by more than 20 percent between 2000 and 2014, but statistics reveal that fatality rates in 2015 bucked this downward trend. A report issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration may be alarming to South Carolina motorists, as it shows more than 26,000 road users were killed in motor vehicle accidents between January and September 2015. This represented an increase of more than 9 percent.<\/p>\n
The NHTSA says that more research needs to be done before the causes of this increase can be fully understood. Improvements in automobile safety features along with powerful public information campaigns and better road design have been credited with improving safety, but human factors contribute to the vast majority of traffic accidents.<\/p>\n
While the NHTSA figures show that fatality rates are going up across the country, the increase is far more pronounced in certain areas. The number killed on the roads grew by 20 percent in the Northwest and 16 percent in the Southeast, but fatalities increased by 2 percent in the South Central and Mid-Atlantic states.<\/p>\n