If you are concerned about your safety and the safety of your friends and family members on the road in Pennsylvania, you are not alone. Motor vehicle accidents can happen anytime, anywhere and have to some degree come to be accepted as a normal part of life. However, these things do not need to happen and records from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that Dauphin County has experienced significant increases in the number of lives lost in traffic accidents.
According to the NHTSA, 17 people died in crashes in Dauphin County in 2014. In 2015, that number rose to 19. An even bigger jump was seen in 2016 when 30 people were killed on area roads and highways. Statewide, there was actually a slight decrease in deaths between 2015 and 2016.
Increases in traffic fatalities in the county were seen across a variety of accident types. Drunk driving deaths rose from three in 2014 to five in 2015 and then nine in 2016. No pedestrians died in Dauphin County in 2014 but four perished in 2015 and seven died in 2016. In the five years between 2012 and 2016, the county lost 115 lives in car crashes. Speeding was a contributing factor in 57 of those deaths and alcohol was involved in 28 of them. Twenty pedestrians and 12 motorcyclists died over the course of that five-year span.
If you would like to learn more about how you or someone you know can get help after being involved in a car accident, please feel free to visit the vehicular crash compensation and assistance page of our Pennsylvania personal injury website.