Crash fatalities up during holiday season

Tragically, the most wonderful time of year is often the deadliest.

Crash Facts, an annual report of the University of Alabama's Center for Advanced Public Safety and the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT), tallies the number of motor-vehicle fatalities around major holidays, when deadly crashes are more likely. In the past five years, an average of 11.8 fatalities occurred during the Christmas holiday period— about three days, depending on which weekday the holiday falls — in Alabama. An average of 10.4 Alabamians died in a crash around New Year's.