A Deadly Story We Keep Missing

The Washington Post ^ | Wednesday, December 27, 2006 | Peter J. Woolley

[MinorityRepublican]

The non-story of 2006 was also the non-story of 2005. It is a non-story every year going back decades. Yet the number of people who die in car crashes in the United States is staggering, even if it is absent from the agenda of most public officials and largely ignored by the public.

When all is said and done and the ball begins to drop on New Year's Eve, 44,000 people, give or take several hundred, will have died in auto accidents this year. To put that number in perspective, consider that:

At the 2006 casualty rate of 800 soldiers per year, the United States would have to be in Iraq for more than 50 years to equal just one year of automobile deaths back home.

In any five-year period, the total number of traffic deaths in the United States equals or exceeds the number of people who died in the horrific South Asian tsunami in December 2004. U.S. traffic deaths amount to the equivalent of two tsunamis every 10 years.

According to the National Safety Council, your chance of dying in an automobile crash is one in 84 over your lifetime. But your chances of winning the Mega Millions lottery are just one in 175 million.

If you laid out side by side 8-by-10 photos of all those killed in crashes this year, the pictures would stretch more than five miles.

If you made a yearbook containing the photos of those killed this year, putting 12 photos on each page, it would have 3,500 pages. If you wanted to limit your traffic-death yearbook to a manageable 400 pages, you'd either have to squeeze more than 100 photos onto each page or issue an eight-volume set.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Makes me want to get a nice big gas guzzling SUV...

[YoungAmerican84]

Makes me want to get a nice big gas guzzling SUV... If I could afford to, I'd get myself a Hummer, red.

[Calpernia]

Down with Cars!

Human settlements and Buses for everyone!




/socialist agenda

[F.J. Mitchell]

We're all going to die from one thing or the other.

[rlmorel]

Yes. Driving cars is dangerous. What is the point of it?

My nephew was killed in a crash a few years back. A girl I dated was killed in one. Unfortunately, that is life, and it could happen to ANY one of us, when we least expect it.

What is the alternative? A completely safe people mover?

[cripplecreek]

Makes me want to get a nice big gas guzzling SUV...

No kidding. I usually drive the S15 but today I had to drive over near Detroit so I took the F150 instead. It's more expensive to drive by far but I feel a lot safer at 85 mph in 4 lanes of traffic.

[WILLIALAL]

Strange how the MSM will demonstrate how insignificant the death toll is from the Iraq war when it suits their agenda.

[xcamel]

The right tool for the job:

[Jaysun]

What now? Are the Godd*mn nannies going to make us wear helmets in addition to wearing our seat belts? Everyone dies. What shocks me is that we allow a very few deaths (lead poisoning and asbestos) to change policy while that which really kills isn't mentioned. I'd be fine if you left both alone.

[Onelifetogive]

Makes me want to get a nice big gas guzzling SUV...

My wife turned her Ford Expedition in front of a full-sized chevy flat-bed work truck (carrying a large welding machine.) The chevy truck T-boned her Expedition in the passenger door at about 55mph without even putting on the brakes. My two pre-teen daughters were in the middle row of seats.

None of the three of them had a scratch on them....

We replaced the totalled Expedition with an even bigger Excursion.....

[Pox]

I've heard this same horsesh!t from the media since I was a child. We need to be riding mass transit and make sure the government regulates every possible tidbit of the roads and autos in this country to insure we don't kill so many of ourselves.

[randog]

When all is said and done and the ball begins to drop on New Year's Eve, 44,000 people, give or take several hundred, will have died in auto accidents this year. To put that number in perspective, consider that:

...that's about .0146% of the nation's population.

...or 880 auto deaths per state.

Aren't numbers fun?

[altura]

Mark Levin mentioned the murder rate in the U.S....of course, I've now forgotten the figure, but it is like 10 times the number of people die from murder each year than were killed in the WOT in all the years.

I know that figure is not right, but it is a startling contrast.

Yet the MSM acts as though no one would have died if we didn't have that stinkin' war goin' on.

[norwaypinesavage]

An important corollary to this is the Blood for Oil story. Nearly 10 percent of those deaths would be avoided if the government fuel economy regulations did not force small cars on the unsuspecting public. The US wastes nearly 4000 deaths per year saving a few gallons of oil.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Of these deaths, it would be interesting to see a crosstabulation of all such fatalities where ALL vehicles involved were being driven by sober insured licensed drivers.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

then why all the whining about pulling out of Iraq?

why no hysteria here with auto crashes?

[Shamrock-DW]

Yep...stupid people shouldn't vote....stupid people shouldn't drive......

[weegee]

The bigger story is how the media has overemphasized the deaths in Iraq. While the servicemen have given their lives, we engage in many more dangerous activities in America every day, like getting gas at a convenience store at night.

[mysterio]

Dear drivers,

You didn't stand up for smokers, either. Enjoy.