Orange County hopes to cut road fatalities in half by 2030

Orange County’s State Highway Patrol has taken steps to help counteract the upward trend in accidents related to distracted driving.

North Carolina adopted the Strategic Highway Safety Plan to officially implement a plan to decrease distracted driving accidents, including those caused by text messaging, applying makeup and adjusting the radio while driving.

North Carolina is a Vision Zero State — and under that plan, one fatality due to distracted driving is considered too many.

This plan outlines a way to further ensure the safety of citizens against injury due to distracted driving.

The safety plan aims to decrease the number of fatalities and injuries in North Carolina by 50 percent before 2030, which would reduce the fatalities by 630 annually.

North Carolina Highway Safety Patrol statistics show there are 1.2 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled as of February 2016.

UNC sophomore Marques Wilson said he hasn’t ever been distracted while driving.

“I think it is a big deal because I think being behind the wheel of a car is dangerous,” Wilson said.

“I believe that it’s a big issue however I don’t know what would be an efficient way of cracking down on it.”

Orange County is one of the many counties that has recognized the severity of this issue by adopting this plan.

Chris Knox, spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, said the department has to continue educating the public on distracted driving.

“It all starts with education and reaching out to communities and schools,” he said.

“Especially with schools and reaching out to the younger students.”

There were 1,260 fatal accidents related to distracted driving in 2013, which increased in 2014 to 1,277 fatal accidents.

“This affects the community in a lot of different ways — we’ve all seen drivers texting and whatnot,” Knox said.

“Studies out there, such as AAA, show the dangers associated with distracted driving is the same with impaired driving, therefore we need to address it just as seriously.”

city@dailytarheel.com