Figures don't lie, but liars figure

[unixronin]

Interesting, if brief, reading on highway speed limits from the WSJ:

We now have 10 years of evidence proving that the only "assault" was on the sanctity of the truth.  The nearby table shows that the death, injury and crash rates have fallen sharply since 1995.  Per mile traveled, there were about 5,000 fewer deaths and almost one million fewer injuries in 2005 than in the mid-1990s.  This is all the more remarkable given that a dozen years ago Americans lacked today's distraction of driving while also talking on their cell phones.

(Emphasis mine.)

Comments

Slightly Off-Topic Rant

[bbwoof.livejournal.com]

Even though traffic safety is improving,



we are STILL doing more damage to ourselves EVERY MONTH than SGV* did to us on 9/11/2001. While I am not condoning terrorism in any form, I think that the government's methods of "combating" this terrorism is a symptom of the worst kind of nanny-stating -- you know, the kind called Fascism. If SGV can't do more damage to us than we do to ourselves, then any response that erodes our civil liberties is way out of proportion.

I haven't seen any "War on Automobiles" in the works; have you?


* SGV: The Set of Guilty Villians, as opposed to the set of villians convicted in the court of propaganda, which might or might not be the same group.

Re: Slightly Off-Topic Rant

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

The SGV are evil-doers doing evil, while drunken idiots in cars are just folks, dontcha know?

(George W Bush has a history of DUI infractions; 40 years ago our First Lady actually killed a fellow teen when she ran a stop sign at 50 miles an hour.)

Even More Off-Topic Rant

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen any "War on Automobiles" in the works; have you?

Then I suggest that you check out the standard k12 curriculum about how automobiles are destroying our environment. I also recommend Al Gore's latest movie.

This war is not fought with military might, but with extrapolated "facts" in schools and movies. The targets are not adults, who can evaluate information in a meaningful way, but children, who have little or no other data to compare with.

Please note, I am nowhere saying that I disagree with conclusions (because I only disagree in part). I like living on this planet. It beats all the alternatives, hands down! I want my children to be able to live here for a very long time to come. I am certainly not opposed to making reasonable changes to alleviate even hypothetical problems in the future. I just think the way it is presented is "dirty".