I have a hard time taking the conclusions seriously when I compare the situation with Switzerland. The current Swiss yearly deaths are around 250, a very signi

I have a hard time taking the conclusions seriously when I compare the situation with Switzerland. The current Swiss yearly deaths are around 250, a very significant drop from the typical 1000 I remember growing up in the 80s - http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/7515011ec041.pdf?expires=1493191296&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=918FF5DCE3816234431A7F71F8965204 http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/7515011ec041... lists a maximum of 1720 in 1971. As the population increased about 25% in the same period, that's about an 8x drop in per-capita rate. In the same period, US fatalities dropped from 52000 to 35000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...), for a per-capita drop of 2.3x (the per-mile drop is 4x, the current Swiss per-mile rate is 60% of the US one). In the period I remember: - speed limits were reduced in town from 60 to 50km/h, on highways from 100 to 80 km/h and on freeways from 130 to 120 km/h - speed limit enforcement became much more pervasive (there's an automated radar every 10km or so on busy freeways?) - cars got safer (this applies everywhere) - drunk driving limits were reduced (and people's attitude to driving after drinking changed substantially) So suggestions that speed limits are irrelevant and pointing to reduced death rates in the US as evidence are not very convincing when other countries saw substantially larger improvements over the same period.