In some encouraging news, federal statistics indicate that instances of traffic death are becoming less common here in America.

The statistics regard U.S. traffic fatalities in 2013. The statistics indicate that deaths from accidents on American roads fell 3 percent between 2012 and 2013. This reflects a trend the country has been experiencing in the past decade. This past decade has seen around a 25 percent fall in national traffic fatalities.

Another encouraging thing from the 2013 statistics is that both distracted-driver-caused fatalities and drunk-driver-caused fatalities were down that year.

Federal officials are pointing to many different things as contributing to the fatality reduction, including: consumer education campaigns, anti-distracted-driving advertising campaigns, electronic safety devices, stronger traffic laws, stronger traffic law enforcement and safer vehicles. What is your opinion on what was behind the 2013 traffic fatality drop?

While it is good to see traffic fatality levels trending in the right direction, it is important to not forget that there are still a lot of deaths out on U.S. roads. The overall traffic death total in 2013, while better than the 2012 total, is still quite a big number. U.S. traffic accidents claimed 32,719 lives in 2013. That is a lot of lives needlessly cut short. That is also a lot of families left trying to pick up the pieces after suffering the heartbreaking unexpected loss of a loved one. Thus, there is still a substantial amount of room for improvement when it comes to U.S. traffic safety.

The time following the death of a loved one in a traffic accident can be one of great hardship for a family. Wrongful death lawsuits can sometimes help families get compensation that can help keep financial problems from being among the hardships they are facing. This is one of the reasons why it can be important for families to understand what their legal options are following a traffic death of a loved one.