During the first three months of 2012, there were 64 more auto accident fatalities in Tennessee than during the same time period in 2011. By the end of the year, 1,013 people had been killed in car wrecks in 2012 — 75 people more than died in 2011. The number of car accident fatalities dropped significantly after the first three months of the year, and the Tennessee DOT believes that this decline may have been caused by a controversial new program.
According to WBIR, the state highway officials in Tennessee believe that the number of deaths in 2012 would have exceeded 1,200 had they not put the new program into place. Our Knoxville, TN auto accident lawyers are firmly in support of any efforts that result in fewer car accident deaths. The efforts by the Tennessee DOT have made a difference.
The Controversial Plan to Save Lives
So, what is it that the Tennessee officials did to stop the rising tide of car accident deaths? The DOT began using the 151 electronic signs across the state to display statistics on the number of people year-to-date who have been killed in auto accidents.
The belief is that displaying the death toll will drive home the point to drivers that risky behavior behind the wheel actually can cause death. Too many people think of car accident fatalities in the abstract, or as something that will happen to someone else. When a person is driving and sees data counting the number of deaths, it can cause the driver to pause and think about whether it is really worth taking the chance of driving unsafely.
As WBIR reports, the sister of a drunk-driving accident victim supports the signs because she believes they help to drive home the point that real people are being killed all the time in Tennessee auto accidents. She is an outspoken advocate of the signs, which hopefully will help to save more lives and prevent more families like hers from being left to cope with an unspeakable tragedy.
Signs Prove Controversial
While there are many advocates of the DOT signs and while the decline in auto accident deaths in the later months of 2012 presents anecdotal evidence that they are making a difference, not everyone is in support of them.
Some people argue that the signs are too macabre and that they should not be posted. However, state officials who hear the complaints believe that the controversy is a good thing since it has everyone talking about the signs. The more people discuss them, the more they think about the number of car accident deaths that occur and the more likely they are to make careful choices.
Putting the data on traffic deaths up on the signs doesn’t have any significant cost, since the signs exist anyway to alert drivers to traffic delays or detours. Because there is no cost and the signs could potentially save lives, there is every reason to continue posting the number of deaths along Tennessee’s roads. Hopefully, people will be deterred from negligent behavior that could result in a fatal crash.
If you have been injured, contact G. Turner Howard III, Attorney at Law at (844) G3-Help-Me or 865-558-8030.
