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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: 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.