Of course "driving in circles" is an exaggeration, but I think they're trying to say that if a place is structured to encourage lots of mileage (maybe there are

Of course "driving in circles" is an exaggeration, but I think they're trying to say that if a place is structured to encourage lots of mileage (maybe there are things with relatively little utility, like surface parking, causing destinations to be very spread out; maybe there's no public transit option so more people are driving), then there will be more fatalities at a given per-mile rate. If you optimize _purely_ for the per-mile rate you might be missing out on ways to reduce fatalities by reducing mileage.