Another reason to support rail: Roads Kill.

[CHamilton]

Another reason to support passenger rail. "The global road death toll has already reached 1.24 million per year and is on course to triple to 3.6 million per year by 2030. In the developing world, where this pandemic has hit hardest, it will become the fifth leading cause of death, leapfrogging past HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other familiar killers, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) most recent Global Burden of Disease study. The U.S. was an early pioneer in road safety standards, particularly with respect to engineering safer highways, implementing government-mandated safety standards for vehicles and enforcing strict drunk-driving laws. The number of road fatalities has been in steady decline since the early 1970s, but with 11.4 deaths per 100,000 citizens, the U.S.’s overall driving record is still poor compared to other wealthy nations." http://roadskillmap.com/

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Supporting transit because roads kill is wantonly disregarding overpopulation and antidawinization. Roads are part of the control.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Supporting transit because roads kill is wantonly disregarding overpopulation and antidawinization. Roads are part of the control.

The flaw in this theory Lion is that far too many innocent people are killed on roads by drunks, druggies and Darwin Award Candidates that shouldn't ride in vehicles let alone operate them!

Let them ride Trains!!!!!

 

[George Harris]

Not sure I believe all I see here. Per population is less meaningful than per miles driven. This is part of the reason behind the low numbers for Europe. The extremely high numbers is some of the less "motorized" countries would indicate that their roads have to be absolute demolition derbies.

Where is the information on Taiwan?

 

[XHRTSP]

Supporting transit because roads kill is wantonly disregarding overpopulation and antidawinization. Roads are part of the control.

That's easy to say when it's not someone you care about getting killed on the highway.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The only way to logically look at long term macro problems is coldly and objectively.

 

[Anderson]

Not sure I believe all I see here. Per population is less meaningful than per miles driven. This is part of the reason behind the low numbers for Europe. The extremely high numbers is some of the less "motorized" countries would indicate that their roads have to be absolute demolition derbies.

Where is the information on Taiwan?

My understanding is that driving in a lot of the ex-USSR is more than a little crazy. China and some other countries are also dogged by a lack of vehicle standards (resulting in lots of small, substandard vehicles, apparently being driven by drivers who don't know what they're doing...something that rarely ends well). One thing that is interesting is that in the US and Western Europe, pedestrian casualties are lower than in Eastern Europe/Asia (which is where a lot of the body count seems to be; it seems that there are a lot of countries where the "roads belong to cars" attitude never took, with numerous side-effects including more pedestrians getting hit).

I agree that deaths per vehicle miles driven would be a useful statistic. It's probably worth noting, though, that in a lot of those countries driving can be a privilege in a way it simply isn't in the US.