AP Photo / Clyde Mueller, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Motorists make their way along an icy Old Las Vegas Highway in Santa Fe, N.M., on Monday.

The number of people who died in vehicle crashes on U.S. highways hit a 62-year low in 2011, according to government data released Monday.

There were 32,367 highway deaths last year — the lowest level since 1949 and a 26 percent decline since 2005, according to an analysis by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

"The latest numbers show how the tireless work of our safety agencies and partners, coupled with significant advances in technology and continued public education, can really make a difference on our roadways," U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

Connecticut, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Michigan, respectively, led 36 states with lower overall traffic deaths in 2011.

Related: 'Black boxes' required in new cars by 2014

"The long term trend is that fatality rates are falling, mainly because of safer vehicles," Russ Rader, spokesperson for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said in a statement. "People are walking away from crashes today that they wouldn't have survived 20 years ago."

The institute gave its "top safety pick" award to a whopping 66 vehicles for 2011. The award recognized automobiles that best protect motorists in front, side, rollover and rear crashes. 

Increasingly, car manufacturers offer crash-avoidance features like electronic stability control. However this year, some luxury carmakers were under criticism for faring poorly in new crash tests.

Related: Safety complaints plague many popular auto models

While 2011's overall fatality numbers were the lowest in six decades, NHTSA noted that the number of people killed in distraction-affected crashes went up by nearly 2  percent. Additionally, there was a 20-percent jump in fatalities among large truck occupants and a 2.1 percent increase among motorcycle riders.

Related: Conn. and Mass. using police spotters to catch people who text while driving

Overall, the 2011 figures were positive, but early figures for 2012 aren't as promising. Cathy Chase, senior director for governmental affairs at Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, noted that crash data for the first half of the year showed the largest percentage increase in traffic fatalities since 1975.

"We were startled by the 9 percent increase," she told NBC News.

In a statement, NHTSA Administrator David Strickland stressed vigilance: "Even as we celebrate the progress we've made in recent years, we must remain focused on addressing the safety issues that are continuing to claim more than 30,000 lives each year."

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Santa Monica, Calif., police in October vowed to crack down on pedestrians and motorists who disobey right-of-way laws in an attempt to curb a rash of traffic incidents involving vehicles and Angelenos on foot.

The stepped-up enforcement began just days before a study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute revealed that Los Angeles was one of the most dangerous cities for pedestrians.

The study released last month investigated crash patterns in the megacities of New York and Los Angeles in comparison with crash patterns for the entire U.S. Data from eight years (2002-2009) were included in the analysis.

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New York and Los Angeles see far more pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities as a percentage of traffic deaths than the national average. In New York, pedestrian fatalities accounted for 49.6 percent of crash deaths, more than four times the national average of 11.4 percent, according to the study. In LA, pedestrian fatalities made up 32.4 percent of all traffic-related deaths.

Fatal crashes involving bicyclists also made up a higher proportion of traffic deaths in the two cities. In New York, that number is 6.1 percent, more than three times the national average of 1.7 percent. In LA, 2.8 percent of fatal crashes involved bicyclists. 

According to the study, more crashes and more fatal crashes also occur at night in New York and Los Angeles than on average in the United States. Particularly in New York, more fatal crashes happen at intersections and on roads with a speed limit of 35 mph or less.

When NBC4 visited Santa Monica on Tuesday, cameras captured several close calls in the coastal city’s intersections.

In one incident, a driver honked his horn to warn pedestrians stepping into the crosswalk that he's not giving them the right of way. They take it in stride and keep walking, but before they can make it to the other side, two more cars race by within inches of them.

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In 2012 alone, 88 pedestrians in Santa Monica were struck by vehicles. Three of them were killed.

"It's distracted driving, not knowing where you're going, being in a rush, and alcohol is always a negative," said Sgt. Richard Lewis.

October sting operations aimed at cracking down on those in cars and on foot who ignore pedestrian laws are an effort to prevent tragedies such as the death of Claire Rose. She was killed by a hit-and-run driver on July 16, her 30th birthday, while in the crosswalk at 21st Street and Wilshire Boulevard.

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Despite offering a reward, police have been unable to find the black Toyota Corolla that fatally struck Rose.

Rose’s death left her boyfriend, Sasha Rasmussen, devastated.

"My life's been turned upside down," he said. "My insides have been crushed. Claire was everything to me."

Also on NBCLosAngeles.com: Sex offenders sue to overturn Halloween restrictions

Enforcing laws to make streets safer for pedestrians, Rasmussen said, is a step in the right direction, but he’d like to see structural changes, like better lighting for crosswalks and more traffic cameras.

"I would say to drivers be cautious. Be aware. Pay attention to what's going on, because Claire was an amazing person," Rasmussen said.

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Reed Saxon / AP

This July 16, 2011, file photo shows Interstate 405 free of traffic, seen looking south from the Skirball Drive bridge, as the demolition of two lanes Mulholland Drive bridge continue in Los Angeles at dawn. "Carmageddon II: The Sequel" is coming to one of the nation's most crowded freeways later this month.

LOS ANGELES -- "Carmageddon II" — the sequel — is coming to one of the nation's most crowded freeways, and authorities are hoping its subtitle won't be "The Traffic Strikes Back."

Transportation officials say what they would like to see during the last weekend of September is a rerun of last year's two-day closure, when hundreds of thousands of motorists dodged doomsday predictions by staying away until the busy, 10-mile stretch of Interstate 405 reopened. It was one of the lightest freeway traffic weekends anyone in Los Angeles could remember.

Hopes are high that next weekend will have the same happy result, as businesses and residents prepare to avoid the roadway that must close again so work can be completed on a bridge.

At Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, just outside the Carmageddon Zone, officials plan to house as many as 300 doctors, nurses and other staff members in dorms at nearby hotels so nobody will have trouble getting to work.

Some patients, including women in the latter stages of complicated pregnancies, are being encouraged to check in before the freeway closes at 12:01 a.m. Sept. 29.

"Everybody, including myself, will be here to man the entire event, just to make sure everything goes safely for our patients and staff," says Shannon O'Kelley, the hospital's chief operations officer.

A group of art enthusiasts, meanwhile, formed "Artmageddon," featuring activities at dozens of museums and art-house theaters and listing them on the website artmageddonla.com. People are encouraged to walk or bike.

The UCLA campus, with about 41,000 students, has emergency traffic diversion plans in place. In Santa Monica, just down the road, a new emergency operations center opened last month. Authorities say every major transit, law enforcement and emergency services agency in the area has been cooperating in making contingency plans.

In the meantime, just what should people do over the weekend when they will hopefully be too afraid to pull out of their driveways?

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The city of Santa Barbara has a proposed solution: Leave your car at home and come visit us.

The Car Free Santa Barbara Project is offering Carmageddon II special discounts on train service to Santa Barbara as well as hotels, activities and restaurants, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Mary Boyd, manager of the program, which is sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution District , told the Times: “We invite Los Angeles-area residents and visitors to use this freeway closure and traffic as a chance to think outside the car.”

Or stay put. "Eat, Shop and Play Locally," advises the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, reciting its official Carmageddon II slogan.

The agency is partnering with hundreds of restaurants, tourists attractions and other venues to offer discounts to people who can show they used mass transit to get there.

If thousands of people hadn't stayed home on a mid-July weekend last year, authorities say they might have caused a traffic backup so massive it could have spread to connecting freeways, gridlocking the entire city highway system. The result, "Carmageddon," would have been miles and miles of idling cars filled with thousands and thousands of angry people.

"The risk factors are exactly the same as they were last year, so nothing has changed in terms of the heartburn that traffic agency people are feeling right now," says Dave Sotero, a spokesman for the transportation authority.

It's not just any freeway being shut down, but one that even on weekends, when traffic is relatively light, can carry a half-million vehicles. It's also the one that links the city's San Fernando Valley, where 1.7 million people live, to its dense, urbanized West Side and its beaches.

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As they did for the first Carmageddon, officials have been posting flashing freeway signs for weeks warning people all over the state to stay away. On Labor Day weekend, people driving in and out of the desert resort of Palm Springs, 100 miles to the east, began seeing the signs.

"We wanted to get that image of what the stakes were by frankly alarming the public, getting the public's attention, grabbing everybody by the lapels and saying, 'This is a real project that is going to cause a real disaster if we aren't prepared,'" says veteran Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who is credited with publicly uttering the term Carmageddon.

Although Yaroslavsky says he first heard the word from an aide, he jokes that it will be cited at the top of his obituary as one his greatest achievements.

The freeway is scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 1, just ahead of the morning rush hour.

Last year it opened 17 hours early, but Sotero says not to expect that again because there's more work this time.

When all the work in the area is completed toward the end of next year, there will be a new, wider and seismically safer bridge crossing the freeway at the city's scenic Mulholland Drive.

The 405 itself will also be wider, making room for a carpool lane through the Sepulveda Pass over the Santa Monica Mountains, where traffic notoriously clogs almost all the time.

If the freeway doesn't reopen on time, that's when Carmageddon would really kick in.

While they insist they don't expect that to happen, officials say they will be ready if it does.

NBC News staff contributed to this report from The Associated Press.

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Eric Thayer / Reuters file

In this file photo, a portion of the 405 freeway is vacant of cars in Los Angeles, Calif., during a weekend closure dubbed "Carmageddon," on July 16, 2011.

As officials in Los Angeles get ready for another weekend closure of a section of the famously-crowded 405 freeway in late September, they're doing things a little differently this time around.

Los Angeles residents were bombarded with urgent warnings last summer, when a heavily-traveled part of Interstate 405 was closed down for weekend construction. "The 405" is the nation's busiest freeway. Southern Californians largely heeded the recommendations to stay off the 10-mile stretch for the 53-hour closure, and "Carmageddon" never lived up to its name.

Later this month, Los Angeles is bracing for another closure of the 405, between Interstate 10 and U.S. 101, on the weekend of Sept. 29. It's already being dubbed "Carmageddon II," but officials are not depending on scare tactics alone this time, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"We realized that you couldn't do what we did the first time the second time quite the same way," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said, according to the Times. "(Researchers) said this time around you can't scare people away from the area, it's better to encourage them to stay home ... That's why we're encouraging you to stay local, shop, eat, walk in your neighborhood."

While  things went relatively smoothly in last summer's closure, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority worries about complacency and says risk factors are exactly the same this time, spokesman Dave Sotero told NBC News. "Our concern is that the public will think that this will be a cakewalk," he said.

That's why officials are still getting the word out via advertising campaigns and news conferences to encourage "Angelenos" to enjoy a car-free weekend.

If drivers ignore the warnings and still hit the road, a worst-case scenario would result in extreme congestion and multi-hour delays, Sotero said. On a typical weekend, half a million drivers use the 10-mile portion of I-405. The goal, according to Sotero, is to get at least two-thirds of the traffic off roads for the closure.

"Now we did this last year and Angelenos heeded our call to stay out of their cars. In fact they did such a great job that afterward we called it Carmaheaven," Villaraigosa said at a news conference Tuesday, according to the LA Times.

Businesses across the city are offering incentives and discounts for people to stay close to home.

"You don’t have to kill the economy on Carmageddon weekend, but you can explore your neighborhood by foot , or ride a bike or use public transit," Sotero said.

Related from NBCLosAngeles.com: Did Carmageddon make way for a baby boom?

Closures will begin on the evening of Friday, Sept. 28 and the freeway closure is expected to continue until the morning of Monday, Oct. 1.

The closure is part of a $1 billion construction project, where contractors will complete demolition work of the Mulholland Bridge in order to widen the 405 freeway in LA. Sections of northbound 405 will be closed this weekend for 10 hours as crews prepare for the final demolition phase, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

NBCLosAngeles.com's Jonathan Lloyd and John Cadiz Klemack, as well as The Associated Press, contributed to this story.

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The family of a 77-year-old woman dragged from her car during a traffic stop by police in Texas says a formal apology and anger-management training for the officer is needed to make things right, NBCDFW.com reported.

Lynn Bedford's videotaped arrest has gone viral, sparking opinions across the country. The video shows Sgt. Gene Geheb pulling Bedford, of Cleburne, from her sports utility vehicle after she did not hand over her license and refused to get out of the vehicle.

Her granddaughter, Aubrey McQue, sought the video from Keene police and made it public.

"There was 19 seconds from when he first initially asked her for her driver's license to when he laid his hands on her -- 19 seconds," she said.

The video shows that the officer requested Bedford's license four times before telling her that he would take her to jail if she did not give it to him.

Read more from NBCDFW.com

After Bedford told him, "Well, go ahead," he opened her car door, grabbed her arm and asked her to step out of the vehicle 10 times. He pulled her from the vehicle after she said, "I will not."

McQue said the officer's use of force was excessive.

"The video does speak for itself," she said. "Not once did she refuse to give her driver's license to him. She said, 'I'll give it to you in a minute,' and no patience was afforded to her. He controlled the entire situation, and he made it go in the direction it did. He let it escalate; he controlled that."

The officer said he stopped Bedford after he clocked her going 66 mph in a 50-mph zone. The family is not disputing the speeding citation but is fighting the charge of failure to present a driver's license.

McQue said her grandmother was speeding because she had a bladder infection and needed to get to a bathroom. The road her grandmother was on did not have a public bathroom in sight, she said.

Cop drags woman, 77, from car after ID refusal

McQue said manners and common sense on the part of the officer would have resulted in a different outcome.

"I know from experience from senior citizens and elderly people that they don't have to move faster," she said. "They take a more leisurely pace to do things, and that's the respect afforded them because they've lived so long."

Keene city administrator Bill Guinn, who has known the family for 30 years, said he called after hearing about the incident and offered to arrange a sit-down meeting with the police department.

The Bedfords have declined. The family retained an attorney but said they don't plan a lawsuit at this time.

"I feel badly for what happened, but that's the way it happened," Guinn said. "It's not the way we want anyone to feel about Keene or to see Keene. Keene is a great town, but there are these things that happen."

Sleepless and tearful
Bedford's family said this has never happened to her before. Since the video became public, her home phone constantly rings, and she hasn't slept. The family said Bedford is embarrassed, feeling like her life has been reduced to a video and Internet opinion polls about her as a person.

McQue said she was speaking on Bedford's behalf because her grandmother can't talk about the incident without crying.

"An apology would be nice, because she really is embarrassed by this -- that people think that she's a criminal. She's not a criminal," she said.

Read more US stories from NBC News

Keene residents said they have noticed that Bedford's arrest is getting national attention.

"I have people call me from Chicago, one from Michigan, so I'm getting phone calls from people wanting to know what's going on in Keene," Dan Roberts said.

He said that everyone in town has their own opinion.

"I watched the video, and I think she was wrong," Roberts said. "She should've handed over her driver's license and ID, and it would've been all over."

But Rachel Jessup disagreed.

"More are siding with her because she's a 77-year-old lady," she said. "People feel bad for her."

"He's a cop," she said. "You expect police officers to be rational and handle situations in a more mature way."

NBC 5's Amanda Guerra contributed to this report.

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Sean Mcafee / AP

According to PennDOT traffic engineer John Ambrosini, paint crews usually have a foreman on the job to clear any dead animals off the road before the paint-spraying truck equipment passes by. This crew didn't have a foreman that day.

While repainting traffic lines, road crews in Pennsylvania inadvertently laid a fresh coat of yellow paint over an unforeseen obstruction.

A dead raccoon, seen by motorists earlier this week, was caught beneath the paint gun of the crew’s vehicle.

A motorcyclist, Sean McAfee, noticed the coated road kill on his way home from work and took a photo of the flattened critter covered with yellow paint.

“When I saw it, I almost wrecked my motorcycle because I was laughing so hard,” McAfee told The Tribune-Democrat.

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said the accident was unavoidable.

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“They did try to stop the paint gun,” traffic engineer John Ambrosini told The Tribune-Democrat. “But with the amount of congestion Thursday, the squirrelly geometry of the road and the size of the equipment, they couldn’t turn around to go back and fix the mistake.”

Ambrosini said paint crews know to avoid such animals and usually a foreman vehicle travels in front or behind the vehicle to remove any obstructions. But the crew didn't have a foreman that morning, and the equipment was too big to turn around in traffic on the curvy, narrow road, so the line couldn't be painted without the carcass in the way.

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A two-foot break in the lines shows where the crew apparently tried to avoid the deceased animal.

“We were out the next morning to clean it up,” Ambrosini said.

An unpainted spot is all that remains where the vermin was run over, and Ambrosini said he is unsure when a crew will redo the paint job.

He said that "painting the yellow lines over the existing lines is not easily done,” adding that the problem occurs “pretty frequently.” 

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Rick Mcclure / AP

Firefighting paramedics remove an injured motorist on Tuesday at the site of a freeway pileup in northern Los Angeles County involving at least 19 vehicles.

All southbound lanes of Antelope Valley (14) Freeway were shut down at about 10 a.m. Pacific time Tuesday after a big rig collided with several cars, blocking the roadway.

Nineteen vehicles were involved and 15 individuals were injured and taken to the hospital, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Two patients were in critical condition, the fire department said.

This story was first reported by NBCLA.com.

A truck towing two trailers of sand or dirt collided with multiple passenger cars, aerial video showed. The cars were piled on top of each other in the roadway.

The crash occurred south of the Escondido Canyon Road exit in the Agua Dulce area (map), about 1 mile east of Vasquez Rocks county park. The crash was reported at 9:42 a.m. PT.

The California Highway Patrol's traffic website stated that 25 tons of sand were involved, and that passengers were trapped in their vehicles. Photos from the scene showed severe damage to vehicles, including a car with seemingly every part crushed except the driver's seat.

Officials on scene said that the big rig was going too fast while traveling around a curve. The truck was not far behind a CHP officer's patrol car, which was attempting to slow traffic so that debris could be cleared from the roadway.

Aerial video showed multiple people being transported on gurneys and stretchers.

Traffic was backed up for several miles. The CHP website said traffic was being directed off the freeway at Escondido Canyon Road.

As of 11:42 a.m. pt, all cars between the exit and the crash site had been cleared off the freeway, the CHP website said. It was unknown when the collision site would be cleared.

At about noon, tow trucks were beginning to remove the first of nine heavily damaged vehicles that had crashed into and, in some cases, on top of each other.

NBCLA.com is operated by KNBC, NBC News' affiliate in Southern California.

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HEMET, Calif. - A high school student in a pickup truck ran into a group of teenagers who were crossing a street outside a California high school Wednesday, leaving nine people injured and backpacks and clothing strewn across an intersection, officials said.

The accident occurred shortly after school ended for the day at Hemet High School, Riverside County fire officials said in a statement.

Eight out of the nine people hospitalized were students, officials said.

The driver, a student at the school, named by police a David Carrillo,18, ran into a group of people who were in an intersection headed toward the student parking lot and the school's football stadium, principal Emily Shaw said.

"The kids were in the crosswalk doing everything right," Shaw said.

Three of those victims were in critical condition, including 15-year-old Helen Richardson, who was in a "conscious coma" and intubated, according to her mother Trisha Telezinski.

Read more at NBC4 Southern California

Witnesses reported hearing Carrillo yell out, "My brakes have gone out," Telezinski said.

Early reports indicated eight pedestrians were taken to the hospital, and at least five of the victims were students, according to CAL FIRE. California Highway Patrol later clarified that nine people were hospitalized, eight of them students at the high school, which had just let out at the time of the crash, according to NBCLosAngeles.com.

NBC4 News said highway patrol officials believe the truck may have had a mechanical problem and has been impounded for inspection.

Drugs and alcohol have been ruled out as a factor, officials said, adding that criminal charges against the driver, if any, will be determined after the evidence has been examined.

A statement released by California Highway Patrol Officer Darren Meyer said the truck was travelling "at a speed greater than the 25 MPH school zone speed limit.”

"The driver stopped immediately after the collision to assist the victims," Meyer said.

Parent Rick Chavez witnessed the accident while waiting at the red light just after picking up his son, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported.

“The guy went through the red light. …I saw the truck and started screaming out ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’” Chavez told the newspaper. “He plowed right into the kids. Two girls were really bad. I thought they were gone. I was in shock.”

NBC4's Olsen Ebright, Samantha Tata and Beverly White, msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A UCSD physicist used his knowledge and a little creativity to get himself out of a $400 traffic ticket.

Dmirti Krioukov was issued a traffic ticket for failing to completely stop at a stop sign. Instead of paying the ticket or going to traffic school, the physicist fought the citation by writing a four-page paper explaining how the ticket he was given defies physics.

Using his knowledge of angular and linear motion, Krioukov prepared a paper for the judge in his case and was able to argue – and prove – his innocence.

The paper explained how what the officer “thought” he saw, he didn’t really see, according to the laws of physics.

Read NBCSanDiego.com's coverage of the physicist's fight

“Therefore my argument in the court went as follows: that what he saw would be easily confused by the angle of speed of this hypothetical object that failed to stop at the stop sign. And therefore, what he saw did not properly reflect reality, which was completely different," Krioukov said.

Before others try the “physics defense” before a judge, Krioukov warned that it took a perfect combination of events for his argument to legitimately hold up.

When asked if he really did stop at the stop sign, the physicist stuck to his argument.

“Of course I did,” he said with a smile.

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The latest episode in the adventures of Batman is now available for viewing on YouTube, thanks to the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department, whose officers pulled over a "Batmobile" March 21.

The car, a Lamborghini, showed only a bat symbol where the license plate belonged. When the Dark Knight showed officers the real plates inside the car and told them he was headed for an appearance for children at a local hospital, “they let him fly – after a picture or two,” police said as they released a nearly seven-minute dashcam video of the traffic stop.

Police earlier posted still pictures of the traffic stop on their Facebook page.

Batman was revealed by The Washington Post to be Lenny R. Robinson, 48, a Baltimore County businessman who has been visiting sick children in Baltimore-area hospitals since 2001. Sometimes his teenage son, Brandon, goes along as Robin.

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