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> I believe the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 30 is traffic accidents. Traffic accidents are not included in the "accidental death"

> I believe the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 30 is traffic accidents. Traffic accidents are not included in the "accidental death" category, and haven't been for as long as I've been looking. From page 2 of the full report[0]: "For example, Malignant neoplasms of the trachea, bronchus and lung (lung cancer) and Motor vehicle accidents are not rankable causes of death (see “Procedures for ranking causes of death”), although they can be identified using the standard mortality tabulation lists. If these causes were included in the current rankings, lung cancer would be placed among the 10 leading causes of death with a rank of 6th, whereas Motor vehicle accidents would rank 13th." It's not even close to being #1, for any age group. More people die from suicide every year than from car accidents. Please also keep in mind that 1 out of every 6 traffic fatalities in the United States was a pedestrian. [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf

lkbm 7y ago
Good catch. However, that paragraph goes on to say "However, each of these is incorporated into broader rankable categories, namely, Malignant neoplasms and Accidents (unintentional injuries), respectively." So they are included in accidental deaths -- they're just not broken out. Being #13 overall definitely doesn't preclude them from being #1 in younger age brackets. Most of the deaths from cancer and heart disease are the older age brackets ("Diseases of the heart" are 23% of overall deaths, but only 2-4% for each age rank among minors; ~6% in the 20s-30s). "Accidents (unintentional injuries)" is the #1 listed cause for every male and female age bracket until the 45–54 bracket (pp 19-22) (this precludes infants under 1). The question is what portion of those were traffic accidents. If we assume traffic accidents at the same rate among all age groups, then we have 36,000/169,936[0] = ~20%. That drops it to around fifth place for most of the younger brackets. (Personally, I'd guess it's higher for at least the 15-19 age bracket, but that's just a guess at this point.) So, okay, fine, traffic accidents is roughly sixth most common cause of death for kids in the US, and thirteenth for all ages. The original question was why we'd prefer that if the cost is the same. Even while my numbers were way off, it's still a big benefit. > Please also keep in mind that 1 out of every 6 traffic fatalities in the United States was a pedestrian. I'm assuming a significant portion of pedestrians traffic fatalities are drivers killing pedestrian, not pedestrians...I don't even know what to put as the alternative. Stepping in front of a bicycle? My position is not that human-driven cars kill human drivers -- it's that human-driven cars kill lots of people. If drivers only ended up harming themselves, I'd be slightly less concerned about it. [0] Just grabbing most recent number from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#Motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

lkbm 7y ago

Good catch. However, that paragraph goes on to say "However, each of these is incorporated into broader rankable categories, namely, Malignant neoplasms and Accidents (unintentional injuries), respectively." So they are included in accidental deaths -- they're just not broken out. Being #13 overall definitely doesn't preclude them from being #1 in younger age brackets. Most of the deaths from cancer and heart disease are the older age brackets ("Diseases of the heart" are 23% of overall deaths, but only 2-4% for each age rank among minors; ~6% in the 20s-30s). "Accidents (unintentional injuries)" is the #1 listed cause for every male and female age bracket until the 45–54 bracket (pp 19-22) (this precludes infants under 1). The question is what portion of those were traffic accidents. If we assume traffic accidents at the same rate among all age groups, then we have 36,000/169,936[0] = ~20%. That drops it to around fifth place for most of the younger brackets. (Personally, I'd guess it's higher for at least the 15-19 age bracket, but that's just a guess at this point.) So, okay, fine, traffic accidents is roughly sixth most common cause of death for kids in the US, and thirteenth for all ages. The original question was why we'd prefer that if the cost is the same. Even while my numbers were way off, it's still a big benefit. > Please also keep in mind that 1 out of every 6 traffic fatalities in the United States was a pedestrian. I'm assuming a significant portion of pedestrians traffic fatalities are drivers killing pedestrian, not pedestrians...I don't even know what to put as the alternative. Stepping in front of a bicycle? My position is not that human-driven cars kill human drivers -- it's that human-driven cars kill lots of people. If drivers only ended up harming themselves, I'd be slightly less concerned about it. [0] Just grabbing most recent number from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#Motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...