| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"=?utf-8?B?LsK3OirCqMKoKjrCty7CtzoqwqjCqCo6wrcuICDimaUgV29ybGQgV2FyIElJSSAyMDA3IC0tIFRoZSBMYXN0IDIwMDAgRGF5cyAgLsK3OirCqMKoKjrCty4g4pmlwqnCruKEog==?=" |
| Date: |
01 Jan 2007 09:34:45 PM |
| Object: |
44,000 dead |
http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061228/EDIT/612280302/1003
44,000 dead, and few notice
Column by Peter J. Woolley
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 teen-agers 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 fund-raising 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.
Peter J. Woolley is a professor of political science at Fairleigh
Dickinson University and executive director of PublicMind, a public
opinion research group there. This column appeared in the Washington
Post.
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| User: "J.D. Baldwin" |
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| Title: Re: 44,000 dead |
01 Jan 2007 10:06:45 PM |
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Column by Peter J. Woolley
[...]
Can you hear me now? Automobile deaths are the leading cause of
death for children, for teen-agers and in fact for all people from
age 3 to 33. Yet this annual tragedy is not a cause celebre.
Well, to put this in perspective, that's only true because from ages 3
to 33, an American isn't at much risk of dying from anything. I don't
know about 15-33, but what I was able to find at dot.gov says that the
automotive fatality rate for kids 0-14 was about 2.4 per 100,000.
That's a small fraction of the overall rate (around 14 per 100,000).
You subtract out all the drunks and dumbasses who killed themselves by
driving insanely, or taking stupid risks, and the risk of being killed
in a car accident goes down radically. It doesn't go down to zero,
and yeah, I'd like it if it were zero, but the roadways aren't *that*
dangerous for someone who drives responsibly and defensively.
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.
Yeah, we could for example require that every automobile be preceded
by a pedestrian carrying a large orange safety flag. That would
reduce traffic fatalities.
Roads need to be made safer, for example, by extending guardrails
and medians to every mile of busy highways.
That's insane.
Speeding and aggressive driving need to be much more rigorously
controlled.
"Speeding" enforcement is a lot more about revenue generation than it
is about safety. People don't die because they drive 80 mph on a
highway designed for 90+ but with a posted limit of 70. They die
because of the aforementioned crazy/reckless behaviors. If state
highway patrols got out of their speed traps and started finding and
nailing weavers, tailgaters and drunks, we'd see a large increase in
safety ... but the likely decrease in revenue ensures that that will
never happen.
Trucks need to be separated from automobiles wherever possible. And
cars need to be built slower and stronger.
"Built slower"? WTF?
I'd like to see stronger, safer cars, too, which is one reason I want
to see CAFE abolished outright ... I notice this jackass doesn't even
bring *that* subject up.
And of course in his zeal for increased "enforcement" he fails to
mention the rather low standard for getting and keeping a drivers'
license in the US.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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| User: "Laurie Mann" |
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| Title: Re: 44,000 dead |
02 Jan 2007 05:05:48 AM |
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Many of us remember when the annual death rate from traffic accidents
was closer to 55,000. With a higher population and a lower traffic
accident rate, that means fewer people are dying in this country from
traffic accidents.
Yes, we should do more sensible things to help reduce traffic accident
deaths. Always wearing seatbelts, for one thing, would help. Not
driving impaired would help even more. But some of these suggestions
are too extreme to be practical.
Laurie Mann
http://www.deadpeople.info
Dead People Server
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| User: "Why Am I here?" |
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| Title: Re: 44,000 dead |
02 Jan 2007 09:44:47 PM |
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"Laurie Mann" <lauriem@dpsinfo.com> wrote in message
news:1167735948.121877.267830@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Many of us remember when the annual death rate from traffic accidents
was closer to 55,000. With a higher population and a lower traffic
accident rate, that means fewer people are dying in this country from
traffic accidents.
Yes, we should do more sensible things to help reduce traffic accident
deaths. Always wearing seatbelts, for one thing, would help. Not
driving impaired would help even more. But some of these suggestions
are too extreme to be practical.
Another bit of advice: PUT THAT DAMN CELLPHONE DOWN!
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