Alabama Highway Safety Programs Producing Positive Results

Efforts to improve highway safety in Alabama are working to change driving habits, and the number of traffic fatalities is down to their lowest levels in nine years as a result, said Gov. Bob Riley.

Over the past year, the Alabama Department of Public Safety has worked in conjunction with city and county law enforcement agencies to reduce the number of traffic related fatalities and injuries in a program called “Take Back our Highways.”

Troopers and other law enforcement personnel have conducted blitzes of the state’s interstates, state highways, and county roads in an effort to stop reckless drivers, drunk drivers, and other traffic violators.

Numbers from the Alabama Department of Public Safety show that so far this year there have been 123 deaths from crashes on rural roads. That’s the lowest number of fatalities year-to-date since 1999, when there were 120 fatalities on rural roads. Crashes are at their lowest level in 12 years.

So far in 2008, the Department of Public Safety reports that rural traffic crashes are down by 4.5 percent from a year ago – from 7,297 down to 6,965. Injuries are down 11.5 percent, from 3,226 to 2,852, and deaths are down 21.7 percent, from 157 to 123.

Source: Office of the Governor of Alabama