9 ms·

In the US only about 1 out of every 70 deaths is from an auto accident. As a single cause of death, it's not even in the top 10. Less than 1 in 3 accidental de

In the US only about 1 out of every 70 deaths is from an auto accident. As a single cause of death, it's not even in the top 10. Less than 1 in 3 accidental deaths is auto accident related. More people commit suicide (42,000) than die in auto accidents (40,000). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php Deaths per mile driven have plummeted over time. From 24 per million miles in 1921, to 7 per hundred million miles in 1950, to 2.5 PHMM in the 1980s, 1.5 PHMM in early 2000s and now about 1.1 per hundred million miles. 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... They are set to plunge further as automated braking and collision avoidance become standard features over the next decade. Edits: Corrected to deaths per 100M miles, not deaths per 1M miles.

fiblye 10y ago
1 out of 70 is pretty damn huge. We have global campaigns about preventing cancers that are less dangerous than car accidents. There was panic over Ebola, which killed essentially nobody compared to car accidents. Yet the general response to 1/70 people deaths being because of cars is "meh, oh well."
- valuearb 9y ago
  Ebola doesn't give you freedom to live where you want and work where you want. We live in a world where we can afford to travel what was once long distances to do so, all due to the automobile. We spend tons of time in our cars, and it's safe time because we have to drive 100 million miles before we can expect one death among us or our passengers.
- 1_2__3 10y ago
  I think you might misunderstand the statistic. He's saying one out of every 70 deaths. If there were only 70 deaths a year, one would be from a car accident. Far more would be from suicide, cancer, and heart disease.
  - fiblye 9y ago
    I grasp that. ~1.5% of deaths is a significant number. People worry about getting brain cancer or being struck by lightning more than they worry about the risk of being annihilated by a machine, despite the latter being more common.
- hoorayimhelping 10y ago
  Because you don't make an implicit cost/benefit analysis when you get ebola. You do when you drive. Every time you drive, you willingly take some risk and accept it. It's the same reason people shrug their shoulders when a mafia guy gets gunned down but lose their shit when a child is killed by stray gunfire. The mafia guy opted in to the risk.
- exclusiv 10y ago
  Agreed. Part of the problem is that we use the word "accident" when it's almost always someone's fault. Everytime I see someone driving terribly I know there's a 50%+ chance they have a sizable dent on their car from a car crash or from them hitting some inanimate object. It's actually a game I play - I'll see someone driving poorly and then say "where's the dent" and look for it. Sometimes I'll even switch lanes to check the other side where it will inevitably be. For certain cars like the Pontiac Grand-Am, my theory puts the dent % and dent damage much higher. In many ways, insurance and how we treat collisions as "accidents" enables them to drive with no regard. By the time they're dropped from insurance, they probably already hurt someone.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Except that statistically car injury accidents are so rare, they probably haven't.
    - exclusiv 9y ago
      I was talking about those that get dropped by insurance (usually multiple crashes) and also - you can get injured and not report it. But anyway, 4.6 M injuries isn't rare. "But there are also millions more who are seriously injured — an estimated 4.6 million in 2016 according to NSC" [1] [1] http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/traffic-deadliest-year/ http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/traffic-deadliest-year/
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    One day you'll be so intent on checking dents on other peoples cars you will cause an accident yourself! My theory is that people should be looking at traffic, not at the detailing on someone else's vehicle.
    - exclusiv 9y ago
      I'm not that hardcore focused on it haha. Most of the time I'm trying to get away from them and get a distance. I'm also checking in on them for any sudden movements. If someone's car is dented, like real dents from a crash, I take extra precaution. It's a filter that works. I'll notice big dents all the time and then the person drives like shit but I'm aloof and safe. I look for people on the phone (calling or texting) too and avoid them. I'll look for 90+ year old people too; their reflexes aren't as quick. Knock on wood, but I've never been in a car crash. Apart from when I was stupid as a teenager, I'm very cautious.
- pythonaut_16 9y ago
  Well fortunately car accidents aren't contagious like Ebola. If Ebola had spread it easily could have killed far more people than car accidents, hence the panic and need to quickly address it.
revelation 10y ago
Except road "accidents" are the biggest killer of teenagers aged 10-19, people who are pretty much on the lowest possible spot on the natural mortality curve: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39920052 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39920052 For many of those, it was someone else deciding to drive that killed them. So yes, if you take slanted statistics and add some "but look over there" rationalizations... well, you still end up at "1 in 3 accidental deaths". What you should be looking at is comparative injury rates for other methods of transport such as rail or tram. The picture is rather shocking, but even more concerning is the lack of a safety culture in the car manufacturers and ultimately the agencies regulating them and the vehicles on the road. Every plane crash has a root cause investigation, but we still have the same truck designs with massive blind spots because...? By the time autonomous driving becomes a reality cars will still have side mirrors with blind spots, you can't make this stuff up.
- YokoZar 9y ago
  A more complete analysis of death rates compares the cause of death vs the otherwise expected lifespan of the person. Cancer and heart disease are major killers, but they primarily affect old unhealthy people. Car crashes and suicides are much more likely to kill young people -- while they may be a relatively small proportion of "total deaths" they are a much larger contributor to "loss of average lifespan"
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Driving is super safe. There is no evidence that driving is any less safe for young people. They just rarely die of anything.
    - YokoZar 9y ago
      Right. Which is why when they do die from preventable causes it has such a large impact on average lifespan. If we want more humans alive for longer we should not ignore these high impact relatively low frequency dangers. If you're under the age of 35, driving may very well be the most dangerous habit you have.
dashundchen 10y ago
1/3 of avoidable deaths is not insubstantial - and traffic accidents aren't the only harm done by autos. Add in an estimated 53,000 deaths in the US due to transportation emissions. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013004548 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013... Potentially millions killed by auto emissions worldwide. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/17/pollution-car-emissions-deaths-china-india https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/17/pollutio... The leading cause of death in the US for people under the age of 25. This isn't even considering the massive amounts of secondary pollution via production and maintenance of vehicles, the enormous land use and sprawl costs (financially and environmentally), harm done via driving induced stress and sedentary lifestyles. Cars may be getting safer on those who can afford to be on the inside, but for everyone else outside they're a nightmare. Our climate, resource and many of our social problems are not going away as long as we center society around the car.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Except that some illnesses like cancer are avoidable, it's not just accidents. Except that buses and trains and horses and teslas kill people and pollute. Even bikes kill people. Every mode of transportation is a killer, so if you want to eliminate travel deaths you can only eliminate travel. If you eliminated cars completely tens of thousands would likely still die in the US from transportation accidents. But now you've trapped people and forced them to live close to work, do less traveling, and live crappier lives. Automobiles provide freedom to choose where you want to live and work. They are cleaner than ever and getting cleaner every year. And the vast majority of the US is empty land. And the below age of 25 stat is incredibly misleading. People under the age of 25 rarely die of disease or cancer, which are by far the leading causes of death. They rarely die at all which is why car accidents are disproportionally represented for young people. In reality 99% of people who die had a cause of death unrelated to traffic accidents.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > Except that some illnesses like cancer are avoidable Sorry?
refurb 10y ago
Interesting stat. 1 death for every 1 million miles. If the average person drives 12,000 miles per year for say 60 years (18 to 80, yes it's over estimating), that's 720,000 miles driven. That would infer your chance of dying in an auto accident is ~70% over a lifetime.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Oops! It was 100 million miles, not 1 million miles, my mistake.
  - refurb 9y ago
    That makes more sense. So your chance of dying in an auto accident is 0.7% over your lifetime. It's probably less than that since I'm sure the average fatality per accident is >1.
    - bagels 9y ago
      Average fatalities per fatal accident maybe.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Our odds are likely many times better than that. Deaths per 100MM are provably going to be cut in half over the next few decades, if not more. Automated driving assistants alone will do that, even without fully automated cars.

fiblye 10y ago

1 out of 70 is pretty damn huge. We have global campaigns about preventing cancers that are less dangerous than car accidents. There was panic over Ebola, which killed essentially nobody compared to car accidents. Yet the general response to 1/70 people deaths being because of cars is "meh, oh well."

valuearb 9y ago
Ebola doesn't give you freedom to live where you want and work where you want. We live in a world where we can afford to travel what was once long distances to do so, all due to the automobile. We spend tons of time in our cars, and it's safe time because we have to drive 100 million miles before we can expect one death among us or our passengers.
1_2__3 10y ago
I think you might misunderstand the statistic. He's saying one out of every 70 deaths. If there were only 70 deaths a year, one would be from a car accident. Far more would be from suicide, cancer, and heart disease.
- fiblye 9y ago
  I grasp that. ~1.5% of deaths is a significant number. People worry about getting brain cancer or being struck by lightning more than they worry about the risk of being annihilated by a machine, despite the latter being more common.
hoorayimhelping 10y ago
Because you don't make an implicit cost/benefit analysis when you get ebola. You do when you drive. Every time you drive, you willingly take some risk and accept it. It's the same reason people shrug their shoulders when a mafia guy gets gunned down but lose their shit when a child is killed by stray gunfire. The mafia guy opted in to the risk.
exclusiv 10y ago
Agreed. Part of the problem is that we use the word "accident" when it's almost always someone's fault. Everytime I see someone driving terribly I know there's a 50%+ chance they have a sizable dent on their car from a car crash or from them hitting some inanimate object. It's actually a game I play - I'll see someone driving poorly and then say "where's the dent" and look for it. Sometimes I'll even switch lanes to check the other side where it will inevitably be. For certain cars like the Pontiac Grand-Am, my theory puts the dent % and dent damage much higher. In many ways, insurance and how we treat collisions as "accidents" enables them to drive with no regard. By the time they're dropped from insurance, they probably already hurt someone.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Except that statistically car injury accidents are so rare, they probably haven't.
  - exclusiv 9y ago
    I was talking about those that get dropped by insurance (usually multiple crashes) and also - you can get injured and not report it. But anyway, 4.6 M injuries isn't rare. "But there are also millions more who are seriously injured — an estimated 4.6 million in 2016 according to NSC" [1] [1] http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/traffic-deadliest-year/ http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/traffic-deadliest-year/
- jacquesm 9y ago
  One day you'll be so intent on checking dents on other peoples cars you will cause an accident yourself! My theory is that people should be looking at traffic, not at the detailing on someone else's vehicle.
  - exclusiv 9y ago
    I'm not that hardcore focused on it haha. Most of the time I'm trying to get away from them and get a distance. I'm also checking in on them for any sudden movements. If someone's car is dented, like real dents from a crash, I take extra precaution. It's a filter that works. I'll notice big dents all the time and then the person drives like shit but I'm aloof and safe. I look for people on the phone (calling or texting) too and avoid them. I'll look for 90+ year old people too; their reflexes aren't as quick. Knock on wood, but I've never been in a car crash. Apart from when I was stupid as a teenager, I'm very cautious.
pythonaut_16 9y ago
Well fortunately car accidents aren't contagious like Ebola. If Ebola had spread it easily could have killed far more people than car accidents, hence the panic and need to quickly address it.

revelation 10y ago

Except road "accidents" are the biggest killer of teenagers aged 10-19, people who are pretty much on the lowest possible spot on the natural mortality curve: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39920052 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39920052 For many of those, it was someone else deciding to drive that killed them. So yes, if you take slanted statistics and add some "but look over there" rationalizations... well, you still end up at "1 in 3 accidental deaths". What you should be looking at is comparative injury rates for other methods of transport such as rail or tram. The picture is rather shocking, but even more concerning is the lack of a safety culture in the car manufacturers and ultimately the agencies regulating them and the vehicles on the road. Every plane crash has a root cause investigation, but we still have the same truck designs with massive blind spots because...? By the time autonomous driving becomes a reality cars will still have side mirrors with blind spots, you can't make this stuff up.

YokoZar 9y ago
A more complete analysis of death rates compares the cause of death vs the otherwise expected lifespan of the person. Cancer and heart disease are major killers, but they primarily affect old unhealthy people. Car crashes and suicides are much more likely to kill young people -- while they may be a relatively small proportion of "total deaths" they are a much larger contributor to "loss of average lifespan"
- valuearb 9y ago
  Driving is super safe. There is no evidence that driving is any less safe for young people. They just rarely die of anything.
  - YokoZar 9y ago
    Right. Which is why when they do die from preventable causes it has such a large impact on average lifespan. If we want more humans alive for longer we should not ignore these high impact relatively low frequency dangers. If you're under the age of 35, driving may very well be the most dangerous habit you have.

dashundchen 10y ago

1/3 of avoidable deaths is not insubstantial - and traffic accidents aren't the only harm done by autos. Add in an estimated 53,000 deaths in the US due to transportation emissions. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013004548 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013... Potentially millions killed by auto emissions worldwide. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/17/pollution-car-emissions-deaths-china-india https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/17/pollutio... The leading cause of death in the US for people under the age of 25. This isn't even considering the massive amounts of secondary pollution via production and maintenance of vehicles, the enormous land use and sprawl costs (financially and environmentally), harm done via driving induced stress and sedentary lifestyles. Cars may be getting safer on those who can afford to be on the inside, but for everyone else outside they're a nightmare. Our climate, resource and many of our social problems are not going away as long as we center society around the car.

valuearb 9y ago
Except that some illnesses like cancer are avoidable, it's not just accidents. Except that buses and trains and horses and teslas kill people and pollute. Even bikes kill people. Every mode of transportation is a killer, so if you want to eliminate travel deaths you can only eliminate travel. If you eliminated cars completely tens of thousands would likely still die in the US from transportation accidents. But now you've trapped people and forced them to live close to work, do less traveling, and live crappier lives. Automobiles provide freedom to choose where you want to live and work. They are cleaner than ever and getting cleaner every year. And the vast majority of the US is empty land. And the below age of 25 stat is incredibly misleading. People under the age of 25 rarely die of disease or cancer, which are by far the leading causes of death. They rarely die at all which is why car accidents are disproportionally represented for young people. In reality 99% of people who die had a cause of death unrelated to traffic accidents.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > Except that some illnesses like cancer are avoidable Sorry?

refurb 10y ago

Interesting stat. 1 death for every 1 million miles. If the average person drives 12,000 miles per year for say 60 years (18 to 80, yes it's over estimating), that's 720,000 miles driven. That would infer your chance of dying in an auto accident is ~70% over a lifetime.

valuearb 9y ago
Oops! It was 100 million miles, not 1 million miles, my mistake.
- refurb 9y ago
  That makes more sense. So your chance of dying in an auto accident is 0.7% over your lifetime. It's probably less than that since I'm sure the average fatality per accident is >1.
  - bagels 9y ago
    Average fatalities per fatal accident maybe.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Our odds are likely many times better than that. Deaths per 100MM are provably going to be cut in half over the next few decades, if not more. Automated driving assistants alone will do that, even without fully automated cars.