The Christmas holiday this year — designated as Dec. 24 to 26 by state police — was one of the safest on the road in years.

As we learned in the Thursday, Jan. 2, edition of the Butler Eagle, while there were more crashes this year — 495 in 2024 compared to 411 in 2023 — than the year before; both those numbers are a substantial drop from 2022, when there were more than 660 crashes.

And this year, with the increase in crashes, there were 81 people injured compared to 70 in 2023. That’s still down from 113 in 2022.

In other categories, however, there was much improvement. There was only one fatal crash this year, which claimed one life, as compared to three crashes that killed three people in 2023 and five crashes that killed a total of seven people in 2022.

There were also fewer alcohol-related crashes, with 27 reported compared to 36 in each of the previous years. In 2022, two of those crashes were fatal, while none were in 2023 or 2024.

There were far fewer speeding tickets handed out this year, as well. Troopers gave out 720 speeding citations in 2024 compared to 1,040 in 2023.

In 2023, troopers also arrested 138 people for drunken driving, down from 200 in 2023.

There are plenty of concerning numbers in this year’s statistics — fatal crashes are always tragic, and the holiday season just compounds that pain — but most of the numbers seem to be heading in the right direction.

We hope that’s a trend that continues.

— JK