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

[ossuarian.livejournal.com]

My first impulse is to say that you can't infer causation from correlation.

But, I'll admit one of your comments gave a justification that has the ring of truth. Someone who is driving for two hours at 55 might be more dangerous than someone driving 90 minutes at 75 simply due to being more tired and suffering more road hypnosis.

I've been to Italy, briefly, and it's incredibly striking how people drive. Everyone is constantly looking for a niche to pass through, including the scooters, for whom these niches are everywhere. Everyone seems to be completely fearless about this. It's like you took the impatient wackoes out of the U.S. and made a country of them.

You'd expect this insane style would mean much higher vehicle fatalities, but I've heard it's less than the U.S. The only explanation I can imagine is that everyone is constantly putting all their attention on the road. The drivers I've seen here drive with a goal of using as little of their brain as possible to operate the gears.

Probably, then, the best solution is to create more public transport. If people drive less, they drive more attentively and thus more safely. The Wall Street Journal's ed page would like that less than the 55 speed limit.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Part of the lower fatality rate in Europe is the intensive training and cost to be able to get a license to drive. In Germany, it costs about $2,000.00 american dollars to get a drivers license (Or did about eight years ago when I was talking to Christoph about getting his license.) It also took over nine months of training and classes. Americans would go nuts if we tried to impose those kinds of fees on driving (and the same level of mastery on our drivers.)