Latest Traffic Statistics Show Rural Wrecks Are the Deadliest

It happens way too often.

A wreck leaves a family grieving a devastating loss.

Just last week in Sewanee two college students got killed on highway one near the University of the South.

A few weeks before that in Walker County a father, his 13 year old daughter and another man died in a crash on 136.

Then just a couple of days before that Bradley County saw its 13th traffic fatality on Georgetown Drive.

And just two days earlier two Polk County teens fell victim to a deadly crash.

What do they all have in common?

They happened on rural roads.

It's a stark reality that the latest numbers back up.

Turns out it's not the congested city highways but the lonely country roads that see the most deadly wrecks.

Like this one on Banks Road in Hamilton County last year .

It killed a young woman when her car left the road, crashed down an embankment and slammed into a tree.

Joyce Kirby, "When you work in towing companies you run up on this all the time and it does kind of work with you mental sometimes because you see the families grieving and everything."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found more than half the fatal crashes last year happened on rural roads.

That's where 59 percent of Tennessee's deadly wrecks took place, along with 47 percent of Georgia's and 62 percent of Alabama's.

Lt. Charles Lowery, Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, "A lot of the rural roads are curvy. Most of them are two lane so."

Along with the make up of the road Lt. Charles Lowery with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office blames driver behavior.

The big one, speeding.

Lt. Lowery, "A lot of times you may come upon a curve that you weren't anticipating and with it being a two lane road and some of them not having shoulders then that can lead to a problem also of correcting or over correcting which will result in a collision."

Animals also contribute to crashes on country roads.

Michael Norman, "The wrecks the worst are right down here cause the curves have been so bad down here where you can't see over the curves to go to the next one."

Whether in the country or city officers urge drivers to buckle up, slow it down and pay attention on the roads.

Lt. Lowery, "Pace yourself and always watch out for the other driver."

Overall U.S. traffic deaths fell last year.

And In Hamilton County they're down slightly so far this year.