![](https://i.imgur.com/CLvY2jA.png")
24-12-2022, 11:57 AM
By Emily Badger and Alicia Parlapiano
Nov. 27, 2022
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The U.S. has diverged over the past decade from other comparably developed countries, where traffic fatalities have been falling. This American exception became even starker during the pandemic. In 2020, as car travel plummeted around the world, traffic fatalities broadly fell as well. But in the U.S., the opposite happened. Travel declined, and deaths still went up.
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Americans die in rising numbers even when they drive less. They die in rising numbers even as roads around the world grow safer. American foreign service officers leave war zones, only to die on roads around the nation’s capital.
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In 2021, nearly 43,000 people died on American roads
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America’s road safety record lies with a transportation system primarily designed to move cars quickly, not to move people safely.
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The fatality trends over the last 25 years, though, aren’t simply explained by America’s history of highway development or dependence on cars. In the 1990s, per capita roadway fatalities across developed countries were significantly higher than today. And they were higher in South Korea, New Zealand and Belgium than in the U.S. Then a revolution in car safety brought more seatbelt usage, standard-issue airbags and safer car frames
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Fatalities fell as a result, in the U.S. and internationally. But as cars grew safer for the people inside them, the U.S. didn’t progress as other countries did to prioritizing the safety of people outside them.
“Other countries started to take seriously pedestrian and cyclist injuries in the 2000s — and started making that a priority in both vehicle design and street design — in a way that has never been committed to in the United States,” Mr. Freemark said.
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In the U.S. in the past two decades, by contrast, vehicles have grown significantly bigger and thus deadlier to the people they hit. Many states curb the ability of local governments to set lower speed limits.
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These diverging histories mean that while the U.S. and France had similar per capita fatality rates in the 1990s, Americans today are three times as likely to die in a traffic crash
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On empty pandemic roads, it was easy to see exactly what kind of transportation infrastructure the U.S. had built: wide roads, even in city centers, that seemed to invite speeding. By the end of 2020 in New York, traffic fatalities on those roads had surged from prepandemic times.
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The pandemic made more apparent how much American infrastructure contributes to dangerous conditions
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other countries have designed transportation systems where human emotion and error are less likely to produce deadly results on roadways.
Do check out the diagrams and read the thousands of comments at the end of the article at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upsho...lists.html
Nov. 27, 2022
......
The U.S. has diverged over the past decade from other comparably developed countries, where traffic fatalities have been falling. This American exception became even starker during the pandemic. In 2020, as car travel plummeted around the world, traffic fatalities broadly fell as well. But in the U.S., the opposite happened. Travel declined, and deaths still went up.
......
Americans die in rising numbers even when they drive less. They die in rising numbers even as roads around the world grow safer. American foreign service officers leave war zones, only to die on roads around the nation’s capital.
......
In 2021, nearly 43,000 people died on American roads
......
America’s road safety record lies with a transportation system primarily designed to move cars quickly, not to move people safely.
......
The fatality trends over the last 25 years, though, aren’t simply explained by America’s history of highway development or dependence on cars. In the 1990s, per capita roadway fatalities across developed countries were significantly higher than today. And they were higher in South Korea, New Zealand and Belgium than in the U.S. Then a revolution in car safety brought more seatbelt usage, standard-issue airbags and safer car frames
......
Fatalities fell as a result, in the U.S. and internationally. But as cars grew safer for the people inside them, the U.S. didn’t progress as other countries did to prioritizing the safety of people outside them.
“Other countries started to take seriously pedestrian and cyclist injuries in the 2000s — and started making that a priority in both vehicle design and street design — in a way that has never been committed to in the United States,” Mr. Freemark said.
......
In the U.S. in the past two decades, by contrast, vehicles have grown significantly bigger and thus deadlier to the people they hit. Many states curb the ability of local governments to set lower speed limits.
......
These diverging histories mean that while the U.S. and France had similar per capita fatality rates in the 1990s, Americans today are three times as likely to die in a traffic crash
......
On empty pandemic roads, it was easy to see exactly what kind of transportation infrastructure the U.S. had built: wide roads, even in city centers, that seemed to invite speeding. By the end of 2020 in New York, traffic fatalities on those roads had surged from prepandemic times.
......
The pandemic made more apparent how much American infrastructure contributes to dangerous conditions
......
other countries have designed transportation systems where human emotion and error are less likely to produce deadly results on roadways.
Do check out the diagrams and read the thousands of comments at the end of the article at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upsho...lists.html
