The loss of life aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight is a tragedy. With that being said, there is a much bigger tragedy happening on our roadways every day. Worldwide each year there are usually less than 500 commercial airline deaths but around 1.3 million roadway deaths (3,560 a day) with 35,000 of those in the US alone. In the US, its the leading cause of death for every age under 33. So yesterday 15 times more people died on a roadway than on the Malaysia Airlines flight. These deaths happen in small doses and usually just make the local news but the overall statistic never seems to be highlighted. And unlike an airline crash, there is no black box and usually no safety investigation or industry overhaul with a traffic accident. Sadly, traffic accidents are usually just attributed to driver error and forgotten about. Vehicle and roadway design issues never seem to get mentioned even though they do play a role. From a broader perspective, though, the fact that the problem is systematic is never discussed on a societal level nor whether a transportation mode that essentially metes out death for minor mental lapses is inherently unjust. Whats the answer? De-emphasize driving in your daily life. Take planes, trains, subways, or buses if available. If not, live closer to where you need to go, take fewer trips, and avoid driving at night. Live in transit oriented, dense communities if you can. From a societal perspective, demand better alternative to cars and better designed communities. Subways for short distances and rail for long distances are orders of magnitude safer than cars if designed properly. Japans high speed Shinkansen trains have seen 1 death in 50 years of operation carrying 10 billion passengers. Autonomous vehicles will make things safer but there are still advantages that transit has over autos when it comes to safety and to other aspects like capacity and energy efficiency. Unfortunately in the US, funding de-emphasizes transit and building codes basically forbid the construction of dense communities that can support good transit. But this can change if enough people make a stink about it. bbc/travel/blog/20120127-travelwise-what-is-the-safest-mode-of-travel
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 03:53:18 +0000
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