I couldn’t easily find statistics on total numbers of accidents over the years, but vehicular accidents resulting in deaths are listed below. Either people are driving more carefully or — more likely — car manufacturers are making them more survivable in case of crashes.

For the state of Florida per http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-30/ncsa/STSI/12_FL/2010/12_FL_2010.htm

Year——Fatalities–Fatalities/hundred million miles
2006—– 3,357—–1.65
2007—– 3,213—–1.56
2008—– 2,980—–1.50
2009—– 2,560—–1.32
2010—– 2,445—–Not listed

You will notice that the total number of fatalities per year has dropped every year in the time period listed as has the number of deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven.

The same trend is seen nationally per:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/PR/NHTSA-05-11

“According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) early projections, the number of traffic fatalities fell three percent between 2009 and 2010, from 33,808 to 32,788. Since 2005, fatalities have dropped 25 percent, from a total of 43,510 fatalities in 2005. The same estimates also project that the fatality rate will be the lowest recorded since 1949, with 1.09 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, down from the 1.13 fatality rate for 2009. The decrease in fatalities for 2010 occurred despite an estimated increase of nearly 21 billion miles in national vehicle miles traveled.”

That’s still a lot of us dead, but nowhere near as many as it could have been.

David for gratitude
and paying full attention while driving