While the statistics on the economy remain stomach-churningly bad, the transportation numbers in this country just keep getting better and better.
First we learned (and kept learning), that Americans are driving less. Then we found out that traffic congestion is down a whopping 30 percent in our cities. Then today, the government announces that there were fewer traffic fatalities in 2008 than in any year since 1961 — a time when Leave It Beaver was prime time programming, “nickelodeon” referred to a movie theater, and country’s population was half of was it is today. Deaths also fell by nearly 10 percent from 2007 levels, from 41,059 to 37,313.
The fact that people are driving less is certainly relevant here. But total miles driven fell only 3 percent in 2008–or one-third as much as road deaths–so that hardly accounts for the whole drop. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggests (on his blog!) that increased seatbelt usage is the primary reason. But, again, seatbelt usage wasn’t much different than it was in 2007.
Here’s an another possibility. We know that small reductions in vehicle travel can yield hugely outsized benefits. For example, that 3 percent drop in vehicle miles traveled on American roads last year producing the 30 percent drop in urban congestion. As economist Joe Cortright explains, it’s a classic “tipping point” effect. Perhaps this outsized drop in fatalities is part of the same dynamic — less congested roads are generally safer, after all.
(Photo via: CompleteAll)
April 29th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
[...] and technology have made cars and highways safer, traffic fatalities have gone down. A lot. As we noted a couple of weeks ago, they are now at their lowest levels since the Kennedy administrat…, when the country had half as many people and they drove fewer miles. The numbers aren’t [...]