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What is the number 1 cause of road fatalities?


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SALT LAKE CITY — A speeding car careens off an icy bridge and two adults are killed. A truck crosses the line and two more die.

After the best year for traffic fatalities in fifty years in Utah, 2013 is off to a sobering beginning. Utahns seem to agree on the cause of crashes like these: Distractions like texting and cell phones.

Roughly 30,000 people die every year on U.S. roads.

"I'm not surprised," said one Utah driver. "It's not good but it's not surprising at all. People don't know how to drive."

But as a matter of fact, distracted driving ranks sixth in terms of causes of death while driging, causing only 20 of the 215 deaths in Utah last year. Failure to use a seat belt is number one.

It also seems many Utahns don't think we could ever have a year with no traffic fatalities.

I don't know how we can change thins because cars are caurs, you know," said one driver named James. "They're going to do the same things and people are going to be distracted in the same way."

Though Utahn's KSL spoke to can't seem to agree on what a realistic minimum number of deaths each year is, they all agree that they don't want any of them to be friends or family.

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Andy Farnsworth

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