campaign is a failure. Our law enforcement needs to move from revenue collection to enforcing basic concepts like signaling your intentions, safe lane changes, seat belt checkpoints, etc.

"While new vehicles continue to sprout ever-increasing numbers of safety features, traffic fatalities still hit a 15-year high in 2005, notching 43,200 fatalities according to a recent release by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). This represents an increase of 1.2 percent over 2004, while miles traveled only increased by 0.03% to a jaw-dropping 2.964 trillion. The projected death rate is still only 1.46 per 100 million miles traveled, which is only a slight increase from the record low of 1.44 in 2004 (which suggests that most means that motorists should spend less time worrying about automotive safety and put more effort into improving their health).

Deaths in passenger cars fell by approximately 2 percent, while SUVs and light trucks saw a 4 percent increase in body count. The motorcycle death toll jumped by 7.7 percent last year and has now doubled in less than a decade. Tellingly, two-wheelers now account for nearly 10 percent of all traffic deaths.

Seatbelts are now used by over 80 percent of drivers, but fully 55 percent of those who died in a car crash were not using one."<ul><li><a href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/AUTO01/604210331/1148">klik</a></li></ul>

 

... is just because there are more people driving in light trucks (which would also explain the drop in passenger car deaths).

I'd love to see statistics on "distracted driving deaths" with the growth of cell phone and blackberry usage.

The seat belt stat is unquestionable.

 

I couldn't agree more!

Fat chance they are going to give up the speeding ticket revenue though. Speeding is an easy one for them to somewhat objectively measure and generate fine revenue. Other forms of violations will be difficult to prove and the fines are a lot lower than the speeding fines.

 

50000 per year for 350M population equals 1/7000 deaths per head of polulation per year, and rising.

The UK has 3200 for 60M which is 1/19000, and falling.

You're nearly 2.5 times as likely to have a fatal car accident in the US.

The difference is due to higher standards of driver training, AND (whether you like it or not, the statistics are compelling) increased enforcement with cameras.

 

and some people just dont care. I was going home the other night, it was late, around 1am. My light was green, then on the cross street RIGHT in front of me, someone in a little saturn decides to run 2 reds in a row. Now if I'd been say 100ft closer I probably would have been t-boned pretty hard. The car must have been going about 50+ in a 25. IDIOT! I think on a weekly basis I avoid 3-4 accidents because people just aren't careful. It aggravates me to no end.

 

would be in the "right."

And for Luvnhate, our area has quite a number of red light cameras. Doesn't change a blessed thing. I run out of fingers on my hands when counting red light runners on any given day of running errands. It only works if they care.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/28/BAGLVIH3KJ1.DTL

http://www.wokr13.tv/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7932681E-D2B7-4E22-83FF-AE7248178C8F

Driver education is the key.

 

Bottomline is it's too darn easy to get a license in this country, with or without actual skills.

 

Too right!