Thursday, April 9, 2015

1,195 CRASH DEATHS REACH RECORD LOW IN PENNSYLVANIA FOR 2014. THIS IS ABOUT 1 DEAD PER 10,000 RESIDENTS OR EQUAL TO THE NATIONAL AVERAGE





APRIL 9, 2015

Statewide, 2014 saw the fewest traffic deaths in Pennsylvania since record keeping began in 1928, the state Department of Transportation said Wednesday.

A total of 1,195 people died in 1,107 crashes throughout Pennsylvania in 2014 down from 1,562 in 1997.  This is about 1 person dead per 10,000 residents or just about the national average death rate.  There were 3,040 total major injuries, down from 5,393 in 1997.  This is about 2.4 persons injured per 10,000 residents.

In Lackawanna County, PennDOT recorded a total of 17 people died in 15 crashes in 2014, which is about average, according to five years’ worth of local PennDOT data.

The analysis comes as PennDOT released a crash information tool Wednesday that allows the public to sort through and analyze myriad police crash report details at dotcrashinfo.pa.gov.

“PennDOT continuously strives to drive down crash and fatality numbers, and we ultimately want to reach zero deaths on our roads,” acting PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said in a statement.

PennDOT gives local police departments grants to aggressively enforce traffic violations — like speeding, tailgating, running red lights and stop signs.
“Those (actions) are more likely to result in traffic accidents,” Scranton Police Chief Carl Graziano said.

As many as two to eight city officers are assigned to target aggressive driving, Chief Graziano said.

“That’s done across the state and locally here, also,” Chief Graziano said.
Scranton had six traffic deaths in 2014, the most in the county. Dunmore ranked second with three.

Since 2010, Scranton has had the most fatal crashes in the county, except for 2011, when there were none, and 2012, when there was one.

Eight out of the county’s 15 fatal crashes in 2014 were due to aggressive driving, the PennDOT data show. Alcohol-related fatal crashes accounted for one-third of the county’s 2014 fatal crashes — including the crash that killed 12-year-old Leonard Zupon Jr. in Old Forge last August. The Carbondale man who killed him, David Turano, was sentenced Wednesday to five to 12 years in state prison.