Every year millions of people are injured in motor vehicle accidents - many very seriously. In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, every 10 seconds someone in the United States is involved in a car accident. The National Safety Council estimated the economic cost of car accidents in 1998 at $191.6 billion.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of injury death in the United States for people aged 1-34.
In 1997, nearly 42,000 people died on the nation's roads and highways, and another 3.5 million suffered nonfatal injuries.
Motor vehicle crashes took the lives of 5,606 teenagers and 2,027 children in 1998. Older adults, as a group, are also at higher risk of dying from motor vehicle crashes.
In the United States, 5,220 pedestrians died from traffic-related injuries and another 69,000 pedestrians sustained non-fatal injuries in 1998.
In 1998, 38% of traffic fatalities were alcohol related; either the driver or an affected person (e.g., a pedestrian or a bicyclist) had a blood alcohol concentration of at least 0.01 gram per deciliter (g/dl).