Good point. So the article mentions the deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. In 2021 it was 1.33, down slightly from 1.34 in 2020. However, I recall that in 2020 the deaths per VMT jumped up.[1]
If that were true we should see an increase in fatalities per mile driven as safety features increase. We haven’t[1]. They have actually plummeted as cars have gotten safer.
Not exactly a steady decline, quote from the NPR article linked above:
In its own early estimates that were released late in 2015, NHTSA reported seeing a 3.5 percent rise in vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. But it also said the fatality rate — the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled — was rising at a slightly higher pace of 4.4 percent.
> that's also doubling from an average ~5,000mi travelled per capita in 1970 to ~10,000mi.
More than that; the chart shows fatalities per vehicle mile starting at their all-time high and falling steadily thereafter. Exactly like you'd expect if people were trying to avoid fatalities. Nothing special happens in 1970, where fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled have already fallen to 4.7 from, say, 21 in 1923.
47 years in the other direction, fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2017 are 1.16, a decline of 75.5% compared to the previous 47 years' 77.4%.
Improvements in safety are largely offset by more drivers, so the total number of fatalities per year in the US hasn’t decreased very rapidly.
2019 had 36,096 deaths, while the maximum ever was in 1972 at 54,589. Fatalities per 100 million VMT on the other hand shows real improvements, from 4.33 in 1972 down to 1.10 in 2020.
The link you included is not to deaths per mile traveled, it's to miles traveled.
Even if deaths are relatively flat, they should be going down as older, less safe cars age out of the fleet of vehicles on the road. As time goes on, a greater percentage of vehicles have better crash safety, ABS, traction control, better airbag systems, and 'driver assistance' aids.
Make sure any stats you do cite include pedestrian and cyclist injuries, but note that exposure data for them is exceptionally poor, because they are typically not included in traffic survey data collected by contractors hired by the government to do traffic counts.
Overall pedestrian and cyclist deaths have shot up, by the way, and are the highest ever.
Enough? Consensus appears to be 300-400k people saved since 1975. Charting motor vehicle deaths against miles driven reveals a stark improvement in mortality as vehicle safety improved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
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