Napa Auto Fatalities Ten Times Higher Than Nearby Marin
With so many disparate communities strewn throughout the state of California, it makes sense that the rate of car crashes would vary depending on the locale. But new statistics show that the discrepancy between neighboring communities might be greater than many have previously thought.
A new report on accident statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that 8.04 out of every 100,000 Napa County residents perished in a fatal car wreck in 2010. In nearby Marin County, only .79 people out of every 100,000 died in a similar manner. That means that drivers and passengers in Napa are ten times more likely to die than their Marin counterparts!
It should be noted that these statistics also show that Napa is worse than the average across all of California, where 7.3 per 100,000 residents die in a crash.
There are a couple reasons why these numbers might be the way they are. For one, Highway 101 in Marin is kept up pretty well, and travel remains fairly slow along that thoroughfare. Plus, the California Highway Patrol thinks that Napa drivers tend to drive older cars that don’t have the newest safety features that Marin drivers have in their more modern vehicles.
One piece of good news? Napa is still lower than the national average of 10.6 deaths per 100,000 people.
I’m worried about these statistics as a San Francisco auto accident attorney. Numbers like these show just how dangerous California roads can be, and I hope as a personal injury lawyer in San Francisco that various safety efforts can bring Napa’s, and the entire state’s, numbers down.
