Thanks to advances in safety, auto accidents have trended downward for decades. Road fatalities steadily declined, too. There were more than 50,000 annually in the early 70s and just over 30,000 in recent years.  For 45 years, the U.S. death toll had been going in the right direction.  However, we hit a major roadblock in 2015 when the number of people lost in crashes jumped 7.2% from 2014, the most significant increase in 50 years. More than 44,000 Americans died in traffic crashes in 2023, which was a 13% increase from 2019 until now. Experts are looking for answers as to why, whe