[Sherman Logan]

Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans.

Classic example of misuse of statistics. Suicide rates have been remarkably stable since the 50s. Indeed the male suicide rate per 100k in 2005 was identical to that of 1950: 17.7.

The female rate, however, doubled in that period, but is still WAY below the male rate.

The reason we now have more suicide deaths than auto crash deaths is because crash deaths have gone down, despite many more total miles driven, while suicide rates have remained the same.

http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/unitstates.pdf

[Tijeras_Slim]

Don’t worry, raising CAFE standards for gas mileage will put things back in balance.

[Strategerist]

Ah, I'd missed your excellent post and you'd already covered how misleading this article was.

Without creating the idea that there's been a sudden explosion of suicides, there's really no article here.

One conservative failing is the conviction that everything is getting worse, all of the time, and a blind idealization of the "good 'ol days.'

What is interesting is the suicide rate was actually HIGHER back in 1950, time of strong families, prayer in school, before hippies and drugs, etc.