44,000 DEATHS On Our Highways: And Nobody Cares!

Your tinfoil hat is too tight.



> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Drugs
>
> Booze
>
> Speed
>
> Teens
>
> Jerks
>
> Macho Men
>
> Bikers
>
> Other Fools
>
> These substances and people types -- in various combinations -- kill
> 44,000 of U.S. citizens a year. It's been like this for decades. But
> nothing substantive is ever done to reduce this carnage. Because
> nobody cares.
>
> Are YOU part of the problem?
>
> ---------
>
> "A Deadly Story We Keep Missing"
>
> By Peter J. Woolley
> The Washington Post
> Wednesday, December 27, 2006; A19
>
> 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:
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> Can you hear me now? Automobile deaths are the leading cause of death
> for children, for teenagers and in fact for all people from age 3 to
> 33. Yet this annual tragedy is not a cause celebre.
>
> Opinion leaders largely ignore the ubiquitous massacre. No marches,
> walkathons, commemorative stamps or fundraising drives are organized.
> It is not brought up in the State of the Union address. It is rarely
> the subject of public affairs shows. Statistics aren't updated daily in
> major newspapers or broadcasts.
>
> Gruesome crashes are reported just one at a time, each as if it might
> never happen again. Little attention is paid to the aftermath: safety
> measures taken or not taken, the workings or non-workings of the
> justice system. These avoidable deaths, as well as more than 2 million
> nonfatal dismemberments, disfigurements and other injuries that go
> along with them, have become part of the fabric of everyday life in the
> United States.
>
> Elected officeholders naturally take the path of least resistance. They
> are well aware that significantly reducing deaths on the roads requires
> radical solutions in the form of regulation, investment and
> enforcement. Roads need to be made safer, for example, by extending
> guardrails and medians to every mile of busy highways. Speeding and
> aggressive driving need to be much more rigorously controlled. Trucks
> need to be separated from automobiles wherever possible. And cars need
> to be built slower and stronger.
>
> But every solution is readily opposed by someone: manufacturers,
> industrial unions, truckers, consumers, taxpayers -- though all are
> potential victims themselves. The public is not to blame. It is hemmed
> in on every side by mind-numbing advertising and shouted stories of the
> moment. Apparently no medium is willing to bludgeon people -- as they
> need to be -- with statistics and trends on the dangers facing them
> every time they set out in their automobiles.
>
> Only if there is a public outcry will this situation get the attention
> due it. Only when people fully realize the absurd and avoidable costs
> of the dangers that stalk them on the road -- and then demand
> governmental action in the form of forceful intervention and strict
> regulation -- will this become the story of the year, as it should be.
>
> The writer is a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson
> University and executive director of PublicMind, a public opinion
> research group there.
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122600775.html
>
>
> -----
>

"Backyard Mechanic" > wrote in message
...
> wrote:
>
>> The writer is a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson
>> University and executive director of PublicMind, a public opinion
>> research group there.
>>
>
> No... the writer is an indoctrinator at fairly dickwad u and executive
> dick at.....
>
> AND the OP is a hack!
>
> The ONLY thing worse than a liar is an ASSHOLE that twists statistics to
> his agenda:
> "Road fatalities in the US fell from 52627 in 1970 to 42116 yearly while
> in the same period road fatalities in Germany fell from 21000 to 6949 per
> year. ..."
>
> Sounds BAD, huh... even though there's probably been a 3 or 4X increase
> in vehicle miles traveled...
>
> Still the death rate is FAR lower than it was 40 years ago. And it's
> ONLY where miles traveled/driven is ignored that the US looks bad.
>
> Here's the facts:
>
> DEATHS PER 100 MILLION VEHICLE-MILES
> (1) Sweden 1.2
> (2) United Kingdom 1.4
> (3) Finland 1.5
> (4) United States 1.7
> (5) Netherlands 1.8
> (6) Denmark 2.0
>
> (9) Germany 2.5
>
> --
> Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer, putting up with my 'smartass' is the price
> you pay..DEAL with it!

The numbers are more impressive considering how much the US population has
increased over the past 40 years.

The 'problem' is in the various states we allow people that do not know how
to drive, to teach others how to drive. Every driver should have to pass a
competent defensive driver training school test before being allowed on the
highways and byways. They generally cost a $1,000 or more but one will save
one many times the cost of the school in lower insurance rates. I sent all
of my children and grandchildren to the Bob Bondurant driving schools at
major raceways, at a cost of around $2,000. None of them to date has ever
been charged with a moving violation or ever been involved in a fender
bender, let alone had a serious accident..

Speed is always the fall guy for accidents but the fact is the vast majority
of accidents happen at around 35 MPH or less. The cause is generally driver
inattention or incompetence and THAT can be corrected or improved
drastically if we want to do so.

Truckers are fall guys as well. Drive any major highway at 3 PM then drive
the same highway at 3 AM when the traffic is mostly trucks and you will be
amazed at the difference than when it was filled with cars. I always travel
at night when driving great distances, for that reason.

mike
..


> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Drugs
>
> Booze
>
> Speed
>
> Teens
>
> Jerks
>
> Macho Men
>
> Bikers
>
> Other Fools
>
> These substances and people types -- in various combinations -- kill
> 44,000 of U.S. citizens a year. It's been like this for decades. But
> nothing substantive is ever done to reduce this carnage. Because
> nobody cares.
>
> Are YOU part of the problem?
>
> ---------
>
> "A Deadly Story We Keep Missing"
>
> By Peter J. Woolley
> The Washington Post
> Wednesday, December 27, 2006; A19
>
> 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:
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> o 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.
>
> Can you hear me now? Automobile deaths are the leading cause of death
> for children, for teenagers and in fact for all people from age 3 to
> 33. Yet this annual tragedy is not a cause celebre.
>
> Opinion leaders largely ignore the ubiquitous massacre. No marches,
> walkathons, commemorative stamps or fundraising drives are organized.
> It is not brought up in the State of the Union address. It is rarely
> the subject of public affairs shows. Statistics aren't updated daily in
> major newspapers or broadcasts.
>
> Gruesome crashes are reported just one at a time, each as if it might
> never happen again. Little attention is paid to the aftermath: safety
> measures taken or not taken, the workings or non-workings of the
> justice system. These avoidable deaths, as well as more than 2 million
> nonfatal dismemberments, disfigurements and other injuries that go
> along with them, have become part of the fabric of everyday life in the
> United States.
>
> Elected officeholders naturally take the path of least resistance. They
> are well aware that significantly reducing deaths on the roads requires
> radical solutions in the form of regulation, investment and
> enforcement. Roads need to be made safer, for example, by extending
> guardrails and medians to every mile of busy highways. Speeding and
> aggressive driving need to be much more rigorously controlled. Trucks
> need to be separated from automobiles wherever possible. And cars need
> to be built slower and stronger.
>
> But every solution is readily opposed by someone: manufacturers,
> industrial unions, truckers, consumers, taxpayers -- though all are
> potential victims themselves. The public is not to blame. It is hemmed
> in on every side by mind-numbing advertising and shouted stories of the
> moment. Apparently no medium is willing to bludgeon people -- as they
> need to be -- with statistics and trends on the dangers facing them
> every time they set out in their automobiles.
>
> Only if there is a public outcry will this situation get the attention
> due it. Only when people fully realize the absurd and avoidable costs
> of the dangers that stalk them on the road -- and then demand
> governmental action in the form of forceful intervention and strict
> regulation -- will this become the story of the year, as it should be.
>
> The writer is a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson
> University and executive director of PublicMind, a public opinion
> research group there.
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122600775.html
>
>
> -----
>

Mike Hunter wrote:
>
> The 'problem' is in the various states we allow people that do not know how
> to drive, to teach others how to drive. Every driver should have to pass a
> competent defensive driver training school test before being allowed on the
> highways and byways. They generally cost a $1,000 or more but one will save
> one many times the cost of the school in lower insurance rates. I sent all
> of my children and grandchildren to the Bob Bondurant driving schools at
> major raceways, at a cost of around $2,000. None of them to date has ever
> been charged with a moving violation or ever been involved in a fender
> bender, let alone had a serious accident..
>
> Speed is always the fall guy for accidents but the fact is the vast majority
> of accidents happen at around 35 MPH or less. The cause is generally driver
> inattention or incompetence and THAT can be corrected or improved
> drastically if we want to do so.
>
> Truckers are fall guys as well. Drive any major highway at 3 PM then drive
> the same highway at 3 AM when the traffic is mostly trucks and you will be
> amazed at the difference than when it was filled with cars. I always travel
> at night when driving great distances, for that reason.
>
> mike
> .
>
> > wrote in message
> oups.com...
> > Drugs
> >
> > Booze
> >
> > Speed
> >
> > Teens
> >
> > Jerks
> >
> > Macho Men
> >
> > Bikers
> >
> > Other Fools
> >
> > These substances and people types -- in various combinations -- kill
> > 44,000 of U.S. citizens a year. It's been like this for decades. But
> > nothing substantive is ever done to reduce this carnage. Because
> > nobody cares.
> >
> > Are YOU part of the problem?
> >
> > ---------
> >
> > "A Deadly Story We Keep Missing"
> >
> > By Peter J. Woolley
> > The Washington Post
> > Wednesday, December 27, 2006; A19
> >
> > 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:
> >
> > o 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.
> >
> > o 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.
> >
> > o 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.
> >
> > o 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.
> >
> > o 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.
> >
> > Can you hear me now? Automobile deaths are the leading cause of death
> > for children, for teenagers and in fact for all people from age 3 to
> > 33. Yet this annual tragedy is not a cause celebre.
> >
> > Opinion leaders largely ignore the ubiquitous massacre. No marches,
> > walkathons, commemorative stamps or fundraising drives are organized.
> > It is not brought up in the State of the Union address. It is rarely
> > the subject of public affairs shows. Statistics aren't updated daily in
> > major newspapers or broadcasts.
> >
> > Gruesome crashes are reported just one at a time, each as if it might
> > never happen again. Little attention is paid to the aftermath: safety
> > measures taken or not taken, the workings or non-workings of the
> > justice system. These avoidable deaths, as well as more than 2 million
> > nonfatal dismemberments, disfigurements and other injuries that go
> > along with them, have become part of the fabric of everyday life in the
> > United States.
> >
> > Elected officeholders naturally take the path of least resistance. They
> > are well aware that significantly reducing deaths on the roads requires
> > radical solutions in the form of regulation, investment and
> > enforcement. Roads need to be made safer, for example, by extending
> > guardrails and medians to every mile of busy highways. Speeding and
> > aggressive driving need to be much more rigorously controlled. Trucks
> > need to be separated from automobiles wherever possible. And cars need
> > to be built slower and stronger.
> >
> > But every solution is readily opposed by someone: manufacturers,
> > industrial unions, truckers, consumers, taxpayers -- though all are
> > potential victims themselves. The public is not to blame. It is hemmed
> > in on every side by mind-numbing advertising and shouted stories of the
> > moment. Apparently no medium is willing to bludgeon people -- as they
> > need to be -- with statistics and trends on the dangers facing them
> > every time they set out in their automobiles.
> >
> > Only if there is a public outcry will this situation get the attention
> > due it. Only when people fully realize the absurd and avoidable costs
> > of the dangers that stalk them on the road -- and then demand
> > governmental action in the form of forceful intervention and strict
> > regulation -- will this become the story of the year, as it should be.
> >
> > The writer is a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson
> > University and executive director of PublicMind, a public opinion
> > research group there.
> >
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122600775.html
> >
> >
> > -----
> >

The things I learned in driver training in high school have saved my
life many times.

JAM

Bill Dunkinfield > wrote:

> Mike Hunter wrote:
>>
>> The 'problem' is in the various states we allow people that do not
>> know how to drive, to teach others how to drive. Every driver should
>> have to pass a competent defensive driver training school test before
>> being allowed on the highways and byways.

>
> The things I learned in driver training in high school have saved my
> life many times.
>
> JAM
>

Good for you... but I cant say the same... the things i learned by
pushing cars to the limit, on snowy parking lots and gravel roads and in
farm fields have saved my life several times.

Not to mention visualizing 'WHAT IF'.. over and over.

The LAST thing that saved my life... and probably some others was when a
cat goes across 2 lanes of the freeway bounces off guardrail, and back
into your lane, hit the brakes and DO NOT SWERVE.
Knocked the other back off the road and mine didnt swerve into the other
side guardrail until the semi that was on my blindside had passed me.

They dont teach that in most drivers ed... or they didnt use to

--
Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer, putting up with my 'smartass' is the price
you pay..DEAL with it!

"actionmax" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> yes 44,000 die in car crashes, but people take a LOT of car rides. We
> should be more worried about smoking related deaths, which kill about
> 10 times as many.
>
I knew someone would bring up the smoking thing. Someone always
does. Makes them feel morally superior to their inferior brethern who
smoke.
Can you show any stats that proves 440,000 people die of smoking?
I don't mean some statistics by a scientist who is in need of funds
for his research project. I mean cases that it can be proven that
the person died because the person smoked. How many people
who never smoked die of lung and throat cancer each year?
(No, I do not smoke).

The magic of statistics. We all know old guys that smoke, I'm eighty and I
know lots of them... If we relied on statistics, milk would be the common
causal link to every baby the died of SIDS. If they know what causes cancer
why have they not found a cure as they did for all the other known killers?
Next thing you know global warning will be the cause, to keep the funding
coming. LOL


mike


"rmac" > wrote in message
...
>
> "actionmax" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>> yes 44,000 die in car crashes, but people take a LOT of car rides. We
>> should be more worried about smoking related deaths, which kill about
>> 10 times as many.
>>
> I knew someone would bring up the smoking thing. Someone always
> does. Makes them feel morally superior to their inferior brethern who
> smoke.
> Can you show any stats that proves 440,000 people die of smoking?
> I don't mean some statistics by a scientist who is in need of funds
> for his research project. I mean cases that it can be proven that
> the person died because the person smoked. How many people
> who never smoked die of lung and throat cancer each year?
> (No, I do not smoke).
>

"Bill Dunkinfield" > wrote in message
...
> Stormin Mormon wrote:
>>
>> A call for more regulation? Yep, that's manure. Liberal
>> droppings.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Christopher A. Young
>> You can't shout down a troll.
>> You have to starve them.
>> .
>>
>> "TBone" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > What a complete load of ****.
>> >
>> > --
>
> Inspect the drivers not the vehicles.
>
> Many of my fellow drivers do not know how to make a left turn. Many do
> not know what that line in the middle of the road is for. Something has
> to be done about people talking on the phone and watching videos while
> driving.
>
> JAM

A friend of mine once said "Ya can't fix STUPID !" and that's so true
when it comes to stupid drivers.

"Mike Hunter" > wrote in message ...
: The 'problem' is in the various states we allow people that do not know how
: to drive, to teach others how to drive. Every driver should have to pass a
: competent defensive driver training school test before being allowed on the
: highways and byways. They generally cost a $1,000 or more but one will save
: one many times the cost of the school in lower insurance rates. I sent all
: of my children and grandchildren to the Bob Bondurant driving schools at
: major raceways, at a cost of around $2,000. None of them to date has ever
: been charged with a moving violation or ever been involved in a fender
: bender, let alone had a serious accident..




The other problem is that we never (or rarely) test again after the initial license is given.

"Stormin Mormon" > wrote in message
...
> But, he can't help you unless you call your legislator and demand
> immediate and forceful regulation!
>
> Liberals make me sick.
>
> --

Take a pill, norm. You'll feel better afterwards.

George