Posted on 04/06/2009 4:16:32 AM PDT by IrishMike
Less money in the pockets of Americans means fewer highway deaths. As the economy slid deeper into recession and gas prices reached $4 a gallon last year, the number of people killed in auto accidents hit its lowest level in five decades.
In addition to fewer miles logged by drivers worried about expenses, experts also cited record-high seat-belt use, tighter enforcement of drunken driving laws and the work of advocacy groups that encourage safer driving habits.
Preliminary figures released by the government Monday show that 37,313 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year. That's 9.1 percent lower than the year before, when 41,059 died, and the fewest since 1961, when there were 36,285 deaths.
A different measure, also offering good news, was the fatality rate, the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It was 1.28 in 2008, the lowest on record. A year earlier it was 1.36.
"The silver lining in a bad economy is that people drive less, and so the number of deaths go down," said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "Not only do they drive less but the kinds of driving they do tend to be less risky — there's less discretionary driving."
Fatalities fell by more than 14 percent in New England, and by 10 percent or more in many states along the Atlantic seaboard, parts of the Upper Midwest and the West Coast, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
"Americans should really be pleased that everyone has stepped up here in order to make driving safer and that people are paying attention to that," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
By this same rationale, if we paid $10 a gallon for gas no one would die on the roads because no one would be on them. Brilliant!
We’re saved! /s
Bad economy good for ketchup, bad for grey poupon !
hwy deathes down...killer rampages up....hmmmm....
*
So there really IS an upside to the downwardly spiraling ecomony.
Is this the best they could come up with?
A different measure, also offering good news, was the fatality rate, the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It was 1.28 in 2008, the lowest on record. A year earlier it was 1.36.It'll go back up when fruit harvest time comes around, no reason.
“So there really IS an upside to the downwardly spiraling ecomony.”
I’m sure an enterprising public health researcher could demonstrate that Canada’s auto fatality rate is lower as a consequence of more people waiting in line for their medical care. Single payer saves lives!
Fatalities, independent of miles driven, fall. This suggests that cars are safer thanks to anti-lock breaks, airbags, etc., or that people are driving safer. That merits a good news headline, yet the media spins it to talk down the economy.
Let’s compare populations, first. We’re safer now than ever before.
More lying with statistics.
Wrong. It will keep going down as cars get safer and safer. The measurements are wrong, as is your implication.
Isn’t this a bad thing? I thought we’ve been told we need to reduce the Earth’s population. /s
hmmm... The 1960s was back before the days of MADD and the liberty squelching laws they had passed. Back before seatbelts were in all cars. Back before speed limits were set at 55.
I thought the traffic fatality rates back then were horrendous, hence the need for all the new laws.
Now we’re back to those rates, and it’s a good thing?
The speed limit reduction in response to the OPEC embargo not only saved fuel, it caused an immediate year-over-year reduction in highway fatalities, both per mile and straight numbers. Another consequence was the mandate to increase fuel economy, which by definition decreases per-mile emissions; that meant that cars had to be lighter weight, which pretty much dictated an increase in the use of aluminum and plastic. Crashing a car still isn’t a safe thing to do, but much more of the impact energy of a crash is absorbed by the crushing of the auto, rather than the crushing of the occupants. When out of control, those old, two- and three- ton cars used to have to hit something really solid (such as a concrete wall, or another such vehicle head-on) in order to finally come to a stop, and it was kinda sudden like. ;’)
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