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from the 'hit-the-road'-but-don't-take-it-literally dept.
ScienceNews reports on a report from the CDC (informative graph):
U.S. drivers love to hit the road. The problem is doing so safely.
In 2013, 32,894 people in the United States died in motor vehicle crashes. Although down since 2000, the overall death rate - 10.3 per 100,000 people - tops 19 other high-income countries, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported July 8. Belgium is a distant second with 6.5 deaths per 100,000. Researchers reviewed World Health Organization and other data on vehicle crash deaths, seat belt use and alcohol-impaired driving in 2000 and 2013.
Canada had the highest percentage of fatal crashes caused by drunk drivers: 33.6 percent. New Zealand and the United States tied for second at 31 percent. But Canada and 16 other countries outperformed the United States on seat belt use - even though, in 2013, 87 percent of people in the United States reported wearing safety belts while riding in the front seat.
Spain saw the biggest drop - 75 percent - in its crash death rate. That country improved nearly all aspects of road safety, including decreasing alcohol-impaired driving and increasing seat belt use, the researchers say.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Sunday July 24 2016, @02:01AM
because pressure groups have made "fast" equal to "bad"
"Pressure groups"? What parry tele, are these groups? I would think they are something like "Concerned Motoring Citizens Who do not Want to be Killed by Idiots Incapable of Estimating Potential Risks of Excessive Vehicle Speed, and Teenagers", or CNCWWKIIEPREVST. Possibly linked with the local SJW coven, no doubt?
And Remember, Mr. Libertarian, it was Ronald Reagan that forced the 55mph speed limit on the States, by Executive Order!!! The man was such a tyrant!
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @04:36AM
Wikipedia lists 31; the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the American Traffic Safety Services Association, B.R.A.K.E.S., Impact Teen Drivers, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and Road Safe America seem to be based in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Road_safety_organizations [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 24 2016, @05:35AM
And these are pressure groups, because they are in favor of less death on American Roads? They have an "opinion" that they could have had differently? My recent exchange with khallow on Climate Change Denierism starts to make more sense. But it is no less wrong.
If you think that your fun trumps the safety of the rest of the public, you are not a libertarian, you are a socialist, trying to maximize your choice and forcing the rest of the driving public to take it down their throats when we have to absorb the cost of your over-estimated competence behind the wheel. There is a website, that is nothing but crashes of $100,000+ cars, proving once again that we should ask, if you are so rich, why can't you drive?
But mostly, actuarials are actual. You may think you are the one that beats the odds, you may think that having a firearm in your dwelling makes you safer. But statistics prove you wrong, dead wrong. So take that opinion, and have it pressure grouped up your nether regions, until you grow a brain.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:12AM
Having once ventured to answer in GungnirSniper's stead, I suppose I am obliged to continue.
What's good for the insurance industry is good for America.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 24 2016, @01:52PM
Not because they favor less death, as you put it, but because they are misguided in their efforts.
Speed doesn't kill. Sudden changes in inertia do kill. If speed killed, Chuck Yeager would be just another forgotten name in a long list of casualties.
The core reason that speed seems to be deadly to Americans is, most Americans refuse to pay attention to their driving. Fiddling with the phone, the stereo, a six course meal, watching a movie, getting head, or just sleeping at the wheel are all factors in many "accidents". We go about licensing drivers all wrong, and we make to many excuses when they do screw up.
Speed is, at worst, a contributing factor in highway deaths.
Motorcyclists have a name for people who think they know how to ride, but don't. Squid. Squids have no bones to speak of, after they've splattered themselves down a half mile of pavement.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday July 24 2016, @06:13AM
Pressure group is a British term for political advocacy groups, like our NRA or NARAL.
The idiotic speed limit was a Nixon thing, not a Reagan one.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:15AM
You may be thinking of the National Maximum Speed Law, which was a law approved by the U.S. Congress and President Nixon.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CE1DC143CE63BBC4B53DFB766838F669EDE&legacy=true [nytimes.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law [wikipedia.org]
Reagan had signed a 55 mph limit into law in California, when he was governor of that state.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/REFLECTIONS-3053481.php [sfgate.com]
The national 55 mph limit was raised during Reagan's tenure as president, with his approval, to 65 mph. It wasn't by executive order, rather the National Maximum Speed Law was revised.
https://www.newsreview.com/reno/return-to-fast/content?oid=9546174 [newsreview.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:27AM
It is not so much the law, it is the Federal extortion that Reagan enacted!
From your Wikipedia cite:
On June 1, 1986, Nevada challenged the NMSL by posting a 70 mph (115 km/h) limit on 3 miles (5 km) of Interstate 80. The Nevada statute authorizing this speed limit included language that invalidated itself if the federal government suspended transportation funding. Indeed, the Federal Highway Administration immediately withheld highway funding, which automatically invalidated the statute by its own terms
Reagan's Federal Highway Administration.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday July 24 2016, @09:50AM
The law was enacted by the Congress and President Nixon in 1974. From the beginning it provided that federal funding be withheld from states that didn't have a 55 mph limit. Reagan's Federal Highway Administration, it would appear, was simply enforcing in 1986 what had been the will of Congress and President Nixon in 1974. I suppose Reagan could have ordered the FHA not to enforce the law; do you prefer that sort of government? I didn't find information about the supposed executive order by Reagan "that forced the 55mph speed limit on the States." They're available online at the link below; if you find it let me know. Really he should not have had to issue any such order for the funding to be withheld from Nevada.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/reagan.html [archives.gov]
(Score: 1) by ncc74656 on Tuesday July 26 2016, @03:15AM
Unlike the present lawless regime, the FHWA under Reagan was enforcing the laws on the books, flawed as they were. Note that he had no problem signing into law the 65-mph speed limit a couple of years later, a step on the way to the eventual recission of federal speed limits in the mid-'90s.
Would you have preferred that he just ignored the law or used his pen and his phone to weasel out of doing the job he was elected to do? That way lies madness, as we are now seeing.