MI Car Accidents Down, But Fatal Crashes Up

There’s both good and bad news tonight from the Michigan State Police on traffic accidents and deaths.

The state of Michigan saw an increase in traffic deaths last year.

In 2010, 937 people were killed in Michigan traffic crashes.

That’s an 8% increase from 2009 and the first increase in seven years.

But overall, the number of traffic crashes dropped by 3%.

Serious-injury crashes declined by 8% and fatal crashes that involved alcohol were down by 5%.

However, drug–involved fatalities went up 29% to 153 last year.

There were also increases in motorcycle-involved fatalities, commercial-motor-vehicle-involved fatalities, pedestrian deaths and bicycle fatalities.

A surprise in the report: cell-phone-involved deaths dropped from 294 in 2009 to 265 in 2010.

Another decline was in the number of car–deer crashes.