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The number of traffic deaths grew in 2001, but so did the number of drivers.
By MIKE BRASSFIELD
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 12, 2002
Believe it or not, your chances of getting killed in a car wreck in Florida have actually been going down.
That's right. Florida's roads are safer than they've been in a decade -- unless you're drinking or riding a motorcycle.
That's what state officials have concluded after reviewing records from the quarter-million traffic accidents that took place in Florida in 2001.
Last year, 3,013 people died and 234,600 people were injured in 256,169 crashes statewide. The number of traffic deaths rose slightly, up 14 from 2,999 deaths the previous year.
But the fatality rate fell. Based on the way the rate is calculated -- the number of deaths per miles driven -- it dropped 5 percent compared to 2000. The state uses gasoline sales to estimate how many billions of miles motorists drive in Florida each year.
"Despite a 1.9-billion increase in the number of miles driven and a 1.5-million increase in the number of registered vehicles in Florida between 2000 and 2001, the mileage death rate was the lowest in over 10 years," said Fred Dickinson, director of the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Safer cars and roads, and better emergency medical care are saving lives, officials say.
But Florida has a couple of nagging problems. Drunken driving deaths and motorcycle deaths are rising.
DUI deaths had been dropping for a decade before they increased 2 percent last year. In 2001, drunken drivers killed 1,000 people and injured 20,001.
"It seems that we've hit a plateau," said Andy Hindman, director of Florida Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
So this year, MADD got Florida lawmakers to toughen penalties for repeat DUI offenders.
Plenty of people drink and drive in the Tampa Bay area. Over the July Fourth holiday weekend, law enforcement officers in Pinellas County arrested 44 people on DUI charges.
"Alcohol is the most common recurring theme" in deadly accidents, said St. Petersburg police Officer Mike Jockers, who investigates fatal crashes. "Some of it is inattention or misjudgment: People making left turns in front of oncoming vehicles, or pedestrians trying to dart across the roadway at the last minute. But the majority of fatalities involve alcohol or drugs."
His co-worker, Officer Joe Pratt, added that most people who die in car wrecks aren't wearing safety belts. Statewide, 64 percent of those killed last year weren't belted in.
Florida's other nagging issue is motorcycles.
Two years ago, on July 1, 2000, the state stopped making motorcyclists wear helmets. Since then, deaths have climbed dramatically.
From 1999 to 2001, motorcycle deaths in Florida rose from 156 to 252, and motorcycle injuries rose from 3,069 to 5,101. The state report did not give a fatality rate for miles driven by motorcyclists.
More than half the motorcyclists killed in 2001 were riding bareheaded.
But even public safety advocates who fought to keep Florida's helmet law acknowledge that there may be more than one reason for the rising death toll.
"Granted, there have been more deaths. But there are more motorcycles on the road than there were before," said Yoli Buss, director of traffic safety for AAA Auto Club South in Tampa.
In fact, the number of registered motorcycles in Florida increased by 20 percent last year.
Also, plenty of bareheaded riders are escaping injury. Last year, 693 motorcyclists in Florida were in traffic accidents but were not injured. Of those, 229 were wearing helmets, and 464 were not.