The cars being built today are safer than ever, not only better able to withstand a crash but designed to avoid accidents in the first place. Roadways have been improved, and police have cracked down aggressively on drunk drivers, the leading cause of serious crashes. So why did highway fatalities go up last year?

After decades of steady decline, roadway deaths fell to a historic low in 2014. But a newly released report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that the numbers are on track for a 9 percent increase in 2015.

While final figures won’t be available until later this year, NHTSA estimates that 26,000 American drivers, passengers, bicyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2015. A total of 23,976 were killed during the same period the year before, with the death toll at 32,675 for all of 2014. At the current rate, that will near 36,000 for all of last year.

If the upward trend continued during the final quarter it would mark only the second time highway deaths rose for a full year during the last decade. At the current rate, Americans are dying at the rate of two loaded 747s crashing every week.