AAA of Arizona says over 750,000 drivers took to the roads during Thanksgiving, which was way more than the 50,000 folks who chose to fly.

With all these drivers hitting the road during the Thanksgiving holiday you might expect the number of serious traffic collisions to greatly increase, but so far (and not all the numbers are in yet) that has not been the case.

In fact, across the nation, this past Thanksgiving was much safer than previous years. There was a serious traffic pile-up in Texas, but otherwise, the holiday was calm.

It certainly didn’t hurt that the holiday weather was much more mild than it has been in years for nearly the entire country. Poor weather, especially around the holidays, always leads to more crashes, and more injuries. This year, the low gas prices caused more people to drive, and since the weather was mild the drives they took were mostly incident free.

In fact, according to the AAA of Arizona, most drivers settled for shorter trips this year, perhaps to a nearby relative or friend’s house, as opposed to their usual trip out of state or even across state. No doubt these limited duration trips also had a positive impact on the collision rate as drivers spent far less time on the roads thereby decreasing their chance of having a mishap.

There certainly is no substitute for common sense when it comes to defensive driving, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: planning shorter trips and keeping distraction down to a bare minimum all added up to making Thanksgiving 2012 a much safer holiday for everyone.