Today the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released their report on traffic fatalities for 2009.
The report indicates that fatalities are still on a downward trend.
This is good news obviously, but still it is too many according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The statement LaHood put on his blog this morning says: “But, I am also disturbed that we are still talking about nearly 34,000 preventable deaths a year.” Preventable being the keyword here. According to the NHTSA report there were 33,963 deaths on the highways in 2009. How can they all be preventable?
An accident is just that; an accident. They had accidents back when horse and buggy was all that was used for transportation. Hell, even people walking fall so to say the accidents were preventable is ludicrous to say the least. I’m not sure what LaHood thinks is preventable, but it must be anything that happens that causes an accident.
Definition of an accident: an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance. Don’t get me wrong any accident is bad, and even one death is one too many. But we are going to have accidents happen no matter what the DOT does. The only way to prevent any accident from happening is to take away the transportation. But like I said even people fall down while walking.
Anyway here are the numbers for 2009
- A decline in highway deaths of 8.9% from 2008 to 2009
- The lowest fatality rate–1.16 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled–on record
- The lowest overall number of deaths–33,963–since 1954
- 15 straight quarters of decline in the number of overall roadway deaths
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