Wichita ? Kansas in 2007 is on pace to record less than a traffic fatality a day for the first time since the 1950s, the state Department of Transportation said.

Through Friday, the department said 354 people had died in traffic accidents so far this year. The Kansas Highway Patrol on its Web site recorded two additional fatalities Saturday, bringing the total to 356.

That’s still well below the 468 fatalities recorded in 2006.

Pete Bodyk, chief of the department’s traffic safety bureau, said he wasn’t ready to predict that the state would get to Tuesday without going over 365 deaths, seeing as some accident reports aren’t shared with the department immediately.

“There could be some out there that we don’t have yet,” Bodyk said. “I do think we’re looking good though. We’re definitely down from last year.”

Since 1950, the lowest annual death toll from traffic accidents was 387 in 1992. The highest was 780 in 1969.

Bodyk said he couldn’t credit any one thing for the decline in fatalities but said seat-belt usage has increased, reaching 75 percent this year for the first time.

He also said safety education programs have helped as well.

Each of the patrol’s six divisions has public resource officers who talk about traffic safety in classrooms and public meetings, said Highway Patrol Lt. John Eichkorn.

“A lot of people are very concerned about murders and those types of horrible crimes,” he said. “But when you look at the numbers in Kansas, traffic deaths far outweigh those. It’s something that we and KDOT take very seriously.”

For example, over the past five years, the state has averaged 106 homicides and 466 traffic fatalities.

Eichkorn also declined to predict the annual number of fatalities would hit a record low, saying a late snowstorm could cause additional accidents or people who died several days after an accident might not make it into the end-of-the-year totals.