Now you see how easy it is to reduce the incredible highway carnage. This
is equivalent to preventing two or three 911 attacks every year!! And you
can bet the idiot american doesn't give a damn.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25801898/
Traffic deaths fall as gas prices climb
As economy slumps, people are venturing out less
updated 3:41 p.m. MT, Tues., July. 22, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Rising prices at the gas pump appear to be having at
least
one positive effect: Traffic deaths around the country are plummeting,
just
as they did during the Arab oil embargo three decades ago.
Researchers with the National Safety Council re****t a 9 percent drop in
motor vehicle deaths overall through May compared with the first five
months of 2007, including a drop of 18 percent in March and 14 percent in
April.
Preliminary figures obtained by The Associated Press show that some states
have re****ted declines of 20 percent or more. Thirty-one states have seen
declines of at least 10 percent, and eight states have re****ted an
increase, according to the council.
The federal government re****ted in April that miles traveled fell 1.8
percent in April compared with a year earlier, continuing a trend that
began in November.
Fewer people on the road means fewer fatalities, said Gus Williams, 52, of
Albany, Ga., who frequently drives to northern Ohio. "That shows a good
thing coming out of this crisis." He has also noticed that many motorists
are going slower.
But the last time road deaths fell this fast and this sharply was during
the Arab oil embargo in 1973-1974, when fatalities tumbled 17 percent,
from
about 55,100 to 46,000; and as states raised the drinking age to 21 in
1982-83, when fatalities fell 11 percent, from roughly 49,300 to 44,000.
Chuck Hurley, a former official with the National Safety Council and the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said half of the decline in road
deaths during the 1970s was attributed to high gas prices. The remainder
was linked to the lowering of freeway speed limits to 55 mph.
(snip)
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