After fallng steadily, the number of fatal crashes in Texas shot up in 2016 to their highest level since 2003, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
There were 3400 fatal crashes on Texas highways in 2016 and 175,000 injury accidents. That makes Texas number one in the country in the number of traffic fatalities, with California, with 10 million more residents, a distant second.
Mark Hanna of the Insurance Council of Texas says the 'turning point' was 2011, with a steady decline in the number of accidents began to turn upward again.
"Throwing lower gasoline prices, throwing the continued use of alcohol, and now the huge problem of distracted driving, and you have a very dangerous situation on Texas roadways," Mark Hanna of the ICT tells News Radio 1200 WOAI.
The decline in traffic fatalities since the 1990s, even as the nation's population grew, was one of the great health care success stories. Far safer automobiles, increasingly safer road construction, and nearly universal use of seatbelts declined to drastically reduce traffic fatalities across the country.
With the exception of the World War Two years, when driving was down substantially, traffic fatalities increased steadily from 1930 until 1979, when a record 50,100 people died on American roads.
Then, starting with the rising price of gasoline and accompanied by new technical advances in safety, the number of highway fatalities began falling. In 2011, for example, there were fewer US highway fatalities than there were in 1950, when the U.S. population was nearly 150 million smaller.
But Hanna says those numbers have skyrocketed in Texas since 2011.He says the state's higher speed limits have played a role. Texas has hundreds of miles of Interstate highway with a posted speed limit of 80mph, and a portion of State Highway 130 is known for its 85 mph speed limit, the highest posted speed limit in the Western Hemisphere.
In addition, Hanna cites a growing population and a strong economy, which means more people on the roads. Low gasoline prices encourage more driving, and increased urban sprawl means an increase in the places, like major intersections, where wrecks are more likely to occur.
But he says distraction, caused by portable devices in the hands of drivers, has been the biggest killer on the state's roadways, both drivers, and the uptick in pedestrian deaths that we have also seen.
"We think distracted driving has a lot to do with a rise in fatal motor vehicle pedestrian accidents," he said. "We have seen this not only in Texas, but across the country. You have distracted drivers, but you also have distracted pedestrians."
Seat belt usage, while rising during the last decade, has also begun to decline.
"Last year in Texas, nearly every major city had a record number of auto pedestrian accidents," he said. "Many of these pedestrians were crossing major highways, which often proves fatal, but there was also alcohol involved, distraction, and other factors."
Hanna said all of the numbers are not bad. He says Arizona and Ohio had more fatalities PER CAPITA than did Texas.
GRAPHIC; INSURANCE COUNCIL OF TEXAS