More people died on Carolina roads in 2020, despite fewer people driving
Stuck at home during the pandemic, Americans drove 13% fewer miles in 2020 than in 2019.
Yet across the country, traffic fatalities skyrocketed, including in the Carolinas, the National Safety Council reported Thursday.
The nation saw 8% more traffic deaths. North and South Carolina saw 12% and 4% more, respectively.
North Carolina’s traffic fatalities had already increased from 2018 to 2019, NSC data showed. But 2020 provided a more significant jump, taking the state from 1,484 deaths in 2019 to 1,664 deaths in 2020. That’s an average of 15 more deaths every month.
“It is tragic that in the U.S., we took cars off the roads and didn’t reap any safety benefits,” National Safety Council president Lorraine M. Martin said. “These data expose our lack of an effective roadway safety culture. It is past time to address roadway safety holistically and effectively, and NSC stands ready to assist all stakeholders, including the federal government.”
South Carolina actually had experienced a 5% decline in the number of traffic deaths between 2018 and 2019. In 2019, traffic deaths fell from 1,034 to 985.
But 2020 wiped away that progress, all but returning traffic deaths to their 2019 level.
A total of 1,025 people died on South Carolina roadways in 2020.
The increase in traffic fatalities comes as local and regional tourism became increasingly popular in 2020. Many Americans opted for vacation destinations that they could drive to — avoiding the risk of more public transportation methods like air or bus travel.
South Carolina’s beaches were a particularly popular “driving destination” for people in living in states from Georgia to Virginia.
Myrtle Beach, especially, stood at the forefront of this trend, and the local chamber of commerce recalibrated its advertising plans to focus on travelers from those nearby states instead of more shutdown or inaccessible regions like New York and eastern Canada.
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 1:49 PM with the headline "More people died on Carolina roads in 2020, despite fewer people driving."
