The Highway Holocaust

There were 58,847 drivers involved in 41,967 traffic fatalities in the US in 1997, which is a Motor Vehicle Fatality Rate of 15.6.  Per the 1999 US Statistical Abstract international comparison of statistics http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec30.pdf  this is 45.8% higher than Germany's rate of 10.7 and almost three times higher than England's rate of 5.6.  Had our MVFR been equivalent to Germany's, there would have been 13,181 fewer Americans killed on the highways that year, and if it had been equivalent to England's, 26,900 fe wer Americans would have died.  In a two year period, this extraordinary MVFR caused the deaths of more Americans than died during the entire Vietnam War.  If it continues like this for the next three decades, with normal population growth, we will have another 968,400 *extra* highway deaths, more than twice as many Americans as died during all of WWII.

The lower average hand/eye coordination, SAT scores, work ethics, and employee competence as measured by lower incomes, of blacks and women, should cause a just society to review the impact they will have on such a high MVFR over the next three decades.  The annual odds of an American being killed in a traffic accident is one out of 6,314, whereas for a German it is one out of 9,346, and for an Englishman it is one out of 17,857.  yet both Germany and England have no or very high speed limits, in contrast to 55 and 65 mph in the US, and 70% of German drivers openly acknowledge that they drink and drive:

Pfafferott (1993) surveyed the self-reported drinking-driving attitudes and behaviours and found that over 60% of former East Germans reported to never drive under the influence of alcohol, compared to under 30% of the West Germans.  http://www.raru.adelaide.edu.au/T95/paper/s15p4.html

If speed limits & drinking and driving laws don't work, then what does?

The NHTSA data shows that non-black men have the lowest fatality rate at 31 fatal accidents per billion miles driven. Black women on the other hand have a rate almost three times higher, at 91.9.  In between are non-black women at 48.4 and black men at 65.1.  If only non-black men drove on our roads and highways, there would be 9,270 fewer highway fatalities per year, which would reduce our odds of dying in a traffic fatality to one out of 8,105, which is not too far off from Germany's odds of 9,346, but it is still almost twice as high as England's.   Conversely, if only black women drove there would be 54,946 more fatalities, if only black men drove there would be 26,696 more, and if only non-black women drove there would be 9,040 more.

The fact that both blacks and women drive in both Germany and England suggests that there is more involved than their higher propensity to have a fatal accident, but Autobahns in Germany look much like our freeways (since our freeways were copied after the Autobahn concept).  The mistake we made was not copying the laws too.  With no speed limits, with cars driving literally 120 miles per hour, with much worse weather than most parts of the US, with a population density more than 8 times greater ( 590 inhabitants per square mile in Germany vs. ours of 72), with much mountainous terrain, the German motor vehicle fatality rate is consistently lower than ours, which by itself disproves the notion that "speed kills".   With the high population density of Germany, it's not too hard to understand how traffic congestion would build up pretty fast if they drove only 55 mph, which provides insight into why Germany has such a low MVFR.
 
The Montana "paradox" is an example of Americans discovering that the Autobahns they copied from Germany DO work as intended, when they are used as they were originally designed--for high speed and low congestion, which of course go hand in hand.  The notion that a driver in his own car seeing the road and cars around him isn't as good a decision maker about how to operate his own car as some judge sitting under fluorescent lights on his wooden bench all day is repugnant to the US Constitution.  Bureaucrats and lawmakers must think that as soon as a responsible citizen gets in his car, he suddenly becomes a child who has to have bureaucrats making childish decisions for him.  Montana and Germany are proof that citizens aren't that childish and judges aren't that smart.
 
There is a LOT more that we could learn from statistics like these from Montana which require just a LITTLE knowledge of algebra, and probability and statistics.  NHTSA data paints an entirely different picture of highway safety than the "mainstream media" paints.  The page at dui.htm might be of interest to anyone who is curious about this.
 

National Transportation Safety Board
1997 U.S. Transportation Fatalities

¹1997 figures are preliminary estimates supplied by modal agencies within Department of Transportation.
²Grade crossing fatalities are not counted as a separate category for determining the grand totals because they are included in the highway and rail categories, as appropriate.
³Does not include motor vehicle occupants killed at grade crossings.
⁴ Refers to only operational fatalities.
⁵ Includes non-U.S. registered aircraft involved in accidents in the U.S.
⁶ The number of pipeline-related fatalities for 1996 gas systems includes 33 associated with the explosion in San Juan, Puerto Rico on November 21, 1996.

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