As June ended, Nebraska officially crossed a somber threshold
Traffic Deaths: 100 Lives Lost
I’ve seen us cross this same threshold in both of my previous years in this role. In fact, in all of Nebraska’s recorded traffic history, there has never been a single year dating back to 1936 where fewer than 100 individuals lost their lives on our roadways. Our closest year to double digits was 1936 itself, which stopped at 150 deaths—and even that figure is likely lower than reality because data collection only began that August. Outside of that historical anomaly, only five other years in nearly a century have ever kept our statewide fatality count under 200.
The data is fascinating but as we start our traffic safety presentations we often tell people that while data is a great tool to make sense of potential trends and impacts, we are talking about real people who lived real lives and whose lives touched and impacted others around them. We use the metaphors of ripples in a pond – even with physical distance from the origin you can feel the effects.
The number 100 isn’t a magical threshold where we suddenly start to care. But it is a metric our brains can readily grasp. We understand percentages, cents in a dollar, and yards on a football field. It gives us a baseline to measure our losses—and as our summer travel peak intensifies this July, that same number is holding a tight, dangerous grip on our safety headlines in two other distinct ways: 100-degree car interiors and 100 mph speeds.
SPEED: 100 MPH
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) funds massive year-round speed enforcement campaigns to help state agencies protect their corridors. We will have to wait to see the final citation data from this July’s high-visibility crackdowns, but for the past several years, the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) has reported a clear, aggressive trend. Troopers aren’t just writing more speeding tickets overall—they are catching a massive surge of drivers pushing past the triple-digit mark. Since 2021, the number of drivers clocked at 100 mph or faster during the summer peak has jumped by roughly 50% compared to what we used to see a decade ago.
When a driver pushes past 100 mph on the interstate, they usually justify it by telling themselves they are saving massive amounts of time. But in reality, the risk-versus-reward calculation completely falls apart.
According to data from the Nebraska Department of Labor, the median commute time across our state is just under 19 minutes. Pinning your foot to the floor to hit 100 mph on that drive instead of cruising at the legal 75 mph limit only shaves off a grand total of 4 minutes and 42 seconds.
Think about what you are choosing to trade for less than five minutes of time. Because of how the laws of physics work, that extra burst of speed means a crash at 100 mph hits with nearly double the destructive energy of a crash at 75 mph. You also need roughly a full extra football field of pavement just to bring the car to a stop if a hazard appears in front of you.
Even a vehicle boasting a perfect 5-star crash rating is only engineered to survive impacts capping at 35 to 40 mph. If a safety cage is already structurally failing short of 60 mph, a triple-digit wreck leaves the human body completely unprotected. You are trading your life for the time it takes to walk from your car into the grocery store.
(This video which summarizes crash testing down by AAA and IIHS shows just how strained safety features are even at 10 and 16 mph above crash test speeds, let along 60 mph)
TEMPERATURE: 100 Degrees
The final “100” of the mid-summer travel peak is the climate inside our own vehicles. July historically brings the highest number of vehicular heatstroke fatalities of the year across the country, and the numbers behind how quickly a car turns into an oven are brutal.
-
A 100-Degree Day Outside: When the ambient temperature outside hits 100°F, the interior of a parked car acts like a greenhouse. Within just 15 minutes, the air temperature inside the cabin can easily rocket past 130°F.
-
The Reality of Heatstroke: Heatstroke officially sets in when a person’s core body temperature reaches 104°F. At that point, the body completely loses its ability to cool itself, triggering rapid cellular damage. Because of their smaller body mass, a child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s.
-
Never Leave Kids or Pets: There is no safe amount of time to leave a child or a pet unattended in a vehicle during the summer. Even a few minutes can be a lethal mistake.
If you want to read more about the physics behind how heat traps inside a cabin, or see a full safety FAQ on common myths, check out last year’s post: July Hot Cars Can Kill.
The Bottom Line
As we head into the peak of the dangerous Nebraska travel season, let’s look out for one another. Slow down, check the backseat every single time you park, and get home safely.
