Numbers just out from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show fatal driving accidents are heading up in Virginia. So are the number of deaths from drunk driving.
In 2016, 760 people were killed on Virginia highways and 29 percent of those deaths were related to driving while impaired. In 2017 the death count rose to 839. Again, 29 percent of the deaths involved drunk driving. That’s an increase in the highway death toll of 10.4 percent between 2016 and 2017.
The Virginia numbers are significantly higher than the national averages, which showed a 1.8 percent decrease in the number of highway deaths. Only D.C. and four states (RI, SD, VT, WV) had an increase higher than Virginia’s.
You can see the full report, and state-by-state figures, here.
So far this year in Fairfax County at least a dozen people have died in road accidents.