The 2018 fatal crash report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed some good news: the percentage of people killed in traffic accidents was down from the year before.
Overall, the number of fatal crashes decreased by 2.4% from 2017 to 2018.
And alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in the state of Florida decreased by more than 3%.
The Northeast Florida Safety Council said there are a number of ways drivers can continue to help these stats go down.
"Being vigilant and making sure that when we get behind a vehicle that we're there to drive and not be distracted. Years ago there was a big push on people wearing seat belts,” said Shana Harvey, communications director with the Northeast Florida Safety Council. “We really had to raise awareness about the importance of seat belts and nowadays seat belt usage is way up. So people understand it is important and the same is true now about distracted driving."
The new report also shows that in 2018, urban fatalities are increasing while rural ones are decreasing. Drivers 65 years and older increased their number of fatalities while every other age group decreased.
"If you're traveling late at night, you need to make sure you're making stops a long the way to rest,” Harvey said. “In addition to that, I did see that Saturday was the highest number of fatalities, which isn't surprising because people are going out, people are all traveling on the weekend so there's more cars on the roads."
To read the full report, click here.