The Louisiana Highway Safety Commission says that the state set a record in 2020 for the fewest motor vehicle crash injuries.
That same same year, however, also produced the most fatalities in Louisiana in a dozen years, they report.
64,500 people injured in crashes in Louisiana last year represent the lowest number of injuries since the state began compiling detailed statistics in 1988, according to the Center for Analytics and Research in Transportation Safetyat LSU.
Crashes involving motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians killed 828 people. That is the highest number of deaths in a single year since 2008.
These Louisiana statistics are in line with national figures that show a sharp increase in fatalities even though fewer drivers were on the road in 2020 because of the pandemic, they report.
Nationally, traffic volume decreased by 13 percent in 2020, but crashes killed 38,680 people, the most since 2007, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report.
Other findings provided by the Highway Safety Commission from the 2020 Louisiana statistics:
- The number of fatalities in crashes with a known blood-alcohol content of .08 or higher remained above 30 percent from 2019 to 2020.
- Bicycle crash fatalities increased by more than 54 percent, and bicycle injuries decreased by 21 percent.
- Motorcycle crash fatalities were down by nearly 6 percent, and motorcycle injuries decreased by nearly 11 percent.
- Pedestrian fatalities were up by 19 percent.
See the report in 2019, where LHSC says that Louisiana registered its all-time lowest motor vehicle crash fatality rate in 2019 and the lowest number of overall fatalities since 2013.
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