RURAL ROAD DEATHSThe chart below shows the 15 states that led the nation in the number of rural non-interstate traffic deaths in 2012.State — Number of deaths• Texas — 1,509• California — 1,042• North Carolina — 844• Florida — 841• South Carolina — 637• Pennsylvania — 636• Ohio — 587• New York — 569• Kentucky — 535• Georgia — 524• Tennessee — 521• Indiana — 463• Alabama — 462• Missouri — 441• Oklahoma — 420DEATHS PER 100 MILLION MILESThe chart below shows the 10 states with the highest rate of rural non-interstate traffic fatalities per 100 million miles of travel in 2012.State — Rate• South Carolina — 3.99• Florida — 3.35• West Virginia — 2.80• Texas — 2.76• Arkansas — 2.71• Tennessee — 2.68• Arizona — 2.66• Kentucky — 2.64• California — 2.61• Pennsylvania — 2.60Source: Rural Connections: Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Heartland
Highway 2 is one of several rural roads in North Georgia.A study of America’s non-interstate rural roads ranks Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama among the top 15 states for fatal accidents and suggests a major overhaul of the states’ rural transportation systems.
The connecting routes in rural Southeast Tennessee, Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama — and other states — sometimes are winding, often shoulderless stretches of blacktop lacking modern safety features such as turn lanes, highly reflective pavement markings and rumble strips at the centerline and edges of the road, according to the study, Rural Connections: Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Heartland.
The study, released last week by the Washington, D.C.-based transportation research group TRIP, looks at the condition, use and safety of the rural transportation system in the face of federal highway funding that is “expected to be cut by almost 100 percent from the current investment level” for fiscal year starting Oct. 1, 2014, if more revenue is not approved by Congress.
For the Chattanooga region’s three states, the number of traffic deaths in 2012 for Georgia was 524, Tennessee had 521 and Alabama had 462.