Though teen fatalities on Utah roads were reduced by 50% from 2023 to 2024, young drivers still accounted for the majority of crashes in Utah County.

The Utah Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Safety released preliminary numbers for Utah traffic fatalities in 2024, and they showed 19 teenagers lost their lives on Utah roads, compared to 38 teens in 2023.

The reduction is encouraging, said Jason Mettmann, communications manager at the Utah Highway Safety Office, but he noted drivers 24 and under accounted for 54% of total crashes in Utah County while teen drivers, ages 15-19, accounted for 27% of total crashes, the highest of any age group in the county.

“We’re glad to see (teen fatalities) going way, way down,” Mettmann said. “However, when I looked at Utah County numbers, teen drivers kind of lead the pack on numbers of crashes in Utah County.”

Mettmann, who acknowledged Utah County’s young population impacts the data, said another concerning thing is that the top five causes leading to accidents were behavioral: failure to yield the right of way, following too closely, failure to keep in the proper lane, unsafe lane changes and going too fast for conditions.

“This is not an infrastructure problem. This is not a construction problem. This is just pure, you got to focus while you’re driving, right?,” he said. “Poor driving is a choice. People choose to do those things and disobey the rules.”

The statewide report showed 281 fatalities on Utah roads in the 2024 calendar year, a slight uptick from 279 lives lost in 2023, though the estimated fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled decreased by 2.53%.

Utah County had 33 fatalities, 11.7% of the statewide total. The city of Provo had five of those accidents, according to Provo Police Public Information Officer Janna-Lee Holland.

“By reviewing these numbers every year, we not only reflect on the lost lives but seek ways to improve,” UDOT Operations Director Troy Peterson said in a release. “All of these crashes are preventable. We all are responsible for prioritizing safety and protecting one another and making this number zero.”

The Highway Safety Office attempts to prevent accidents by enforcing the rules, often through seat belt blitzes or distracted driving blitzes, Mettmann said. But he believes people have to hold themselves accountable.

“We can’t enforce our way out of the hole, and people have got to just choose to drive more responsibly,” he said.

One way to hold teen drivers responsible is by involving their parents. With help from Zero Fatalities, the state is encouraging parents to fulfill the entire 40 hours of driving practice required for children to obtain a license, Mettmann said.

“We find that so many parents are just signing the form saying, ‘Yeah, sure. We did our 40 hours of practice with 10 hours of night driving,’ and it shows in the data that that’s just not happening,” he said.

Sgt. Ray Ormond, public information officer for the Utah County Sheriff’s Department, added that sworn officers assigned to high schools are instructed to educate kids on driving safety.

The overall issues of road safety, though, go beyond cars.

UDOT’s 2024 study identified that vulnerable users, which include motorcyclists, pedestrians and bicyclists, accounted for one-third of fatalities.

Motorcycle deaths hit a 15-year high with 53 fatalities. The majority of those accidents were single-vehicle crashes with one rider.

Mettmann stated there were 226 motorcycle crashes in Utah County throughout the year, five of which were fatal. He added that over 90% of motorcycle-related crashes are from drivers who don’t have a motorcycle endorsement.

“People who are out there causing crashes and the people who are out there getting motorcycle fatalities are not taking the training,” he said. “So it points to a skills issue. Every year, we provide discounts. Our office subsidizes discounts for people to go and take motorcycle rider basic rider courses. And we give out hundreds of those every year. But it still needs to happen more.”

In Ormond’s experience as a patrol sergeant around the Eagle Mountain area last year, he said most of the motorcycle crashes he saw were single-vehicle crashes, adding that speed often was to blame.

“Speed’s a factor in most accidents, and I think a lot of the riders were just trying to ride above their ability and going too fast, which led to accidents,” Ormond said.

Provo police say the city saw one motorcycle death on the year and none in 2023 or 2022.

Pedestrian fatalities also rose from 40 fatalities in 2023 to 43 2024.

Wyatt Wooley, the senior communications manager for UDOT Region 3, an area that covers Utah County, said Zero Fatalities stresses the importance of the basics when it visits schools for seminars: looking both ways when crossing the street and making eye contact with the drivers.

He said there were a handful of pedestrian accidents in Region 3 that occurred because people were not paying attention.

“We need everyone to watch out, and that includes pedestrians,” Wooley said. “We need to get off of our phones. We need to stop being distracted when we’re walking or driving across the street and pay attention to not just what we’re doing but what the other drivers and other people are doing around us as well.”

There were some encouraging notes in the UDOT study. Unrestrained fatalities declined from 81 in 2023 to 69 in 2024. However, almost 39% of crash victims were unrestrained, a higher percentage than the estimated 9.3% of Utahns who don’t use a seat belt, according to UDOT.

Speed-related fatalities also decreased from 93 to 77 people, as did alcohol/drug-related deaths, from 125 to 110. Roughly 72% of lives lost were male, a similar rate as 2023.

Data provided by Zero Fatalities since 2016 shows the fatality rate dropped to 248 individuals in 2019 but rose to 276 deaths in 2020 and eclipsed the 300 mark in 2021 and 2022. Last year marked a consecutive year the death toll fell below 300 fatalities.

The Provo Police Department said providing safety on the roads is paramount.

“Provo Police Department has a dedicated traffic team, whose priority is to respond to traffic accidents, and conduct targeted enforcement for problem/hotspot locations,” said Lt. Chris Chambers, the department’s day shift commander in patrol, in a statement. “Their top areas of concern include the following driving and riding behaviors: Speeding, distracted driving, running red lights, not looking out for pedestrians/cyclists/scooters. Please watch your speeds, share the road, look out for pedestrians and slow down when bad weather hits.”