Highway fatalities drop in 2007 The preliminary report on 2007 highway fatalities shows the overall number of traffic fatalities fell to 41,059, the lowest number since 1994. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled was 1.37, the lowest fatality rate on record. And 2.49 million people were injured in highway crashes last year, the lowest seen since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began collecting injury data in 1988. The number of truck-involved fatalities was down 4.4 percent in 2007 to 4,808 compared with 5,027 in 2006. Truck-involved fatalities are at their lowest level since 1992, which was second only to 1975. While the Department of Transportation has released an estimate for overall vehicles miles traveled (down 0.6 percent), the department has not yet released a truck VMT needed to calculate a truck-involved fatality rate.               return