Imagine if 43,000 people were killed in commercial airplane crashes each year in the USA, roughly 120 deaths each day. Imagine a 747 or jumbo Airbus disaster about once a week, perhaps two or three each week. From sea to shining sea, planes crashing in flames with thousands of passengers killed. Imagine the outrage, yeah. Would we accept the carnage without taking immediate measure to stanch the carnage? Congress would hold hearing after hearing to study and then to stop the slaughter. Immediate steps would be taken to ground aircraft until air travel once again proved safe. Political fallout would cause the restructuring of the FAA. U.S. Secretary of Transportation would resign before committing suicide. Travelers would opt for train travel or no travel at all. We’d turn to a new cable channel dedicated exclusively to airline crashes. Casinos would take wagers on the over/under number of travelers killed each month. Later, historians would describe America as entering an era of self-harm brought on by extreme nonfeasance and misfeasance.
What we would never tolerate in air travel, we do indeed tolerate on our highways. Because we drive too fast and care too little about mandating highway safety, over 40,000 people die each year on America’s highways. If we even care, ending the bloodbath on our highways and byways will take a societal attitude adjustment. We hear of a fatality or two every day, and our normal reaction is expected: too bad! Wha’da’ya going to do? Each time we start the car and leave the garage we face our greatest quotidian danger. Without complaint, we are a dedicated car and gun culture. Cars are king. Guns ride shotgun. We go fast. We have guns and will travel. Stay out of the way or you’ll get hurt. Even if you drive carefully and stay out of the way, you may get hurt or killed. Tough luck. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. That’s America. It is what it is, isn’t it? Problem is, it is harder each day to stay out of the way. Each day the odds go up you will get hurt if you hazard to enter a car and drive to the local Safeway. Why, oh why, do we so blithely accept the yearly slaughter on our highways? Why? Adding to the horror, gun violence contributes generously to the death count, another 40,000 deaths each year. Unthinkingly we tolerate more avoidable killings than reason ought to allow. As the rate of killing increases, figuring both traffic and gun related deaths together, soon we will surpass 100,000 dead each year. There it is. That’s America. Too many thoughts and prayers to heap onto the piles of burial flowers.
Solutions are available to curb most traffic deaths, but generally we choose to overlook remedies. Sadly, we simply don’t care enough. Change, of course, would come if we had the will to use tools available. And plenty of tools are available. Already we have produced safer cars but not the streets on which they travel. Roads need reengineering to discourage speeding and dangerous driving. Speed cameras ought to be common on most highways, and traffic circles ought to be constructed at intersections where crashes have repeatedly occurred. Recently here in the Pacific Northwest three fatal crashes were caused by drivers zooming over 100 mph. No car, not even emergency vehicles, should be capable of going that fast. Speed limits on interstates should be 50 mph at best, and the arguments from the trucking industry should be rebuffed. Rural two-lane highways should have 40 mph limits, and city and urban roads ought to post limits no greater than 25 mph. We need to slow down.
Sounds outrageous, I know, but think of all the wasted lives. Hiring more traffic cops is not the answer. Enforcement helps some but does not provide a long-term solution. What can be done quickly? Because they reduce crashes, speed safety cameras should be as common as traffic lights. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speed safety cameras work and save lives. Traffic calming engineering also ought to be employed nationwide, and DUI convictions should be elevated from misdemeanors to felonies. Sorry ACLU but measuring devices and smart highway systems are coming soon and privacy issues must yield a notch or two to save lives, thousands of lives. More can be done with technology to assure safe passage on our roads. Biometric technology and V2X technology promise huge advances in road safety. Technology, which can be put in place almost immediately, can be used to assure safer driving. For instance, a moving violation as measured by V2X systems may be issued to any driver travelling ten MPH over the speed limit. Meaning all traffic will be always monitored for safety. And all traffic will communicate with each other by exchanging data and recognizing potential hazards. It’s not future science. It’s possible now.
Sound draconian? Sure. But lives are at stake; your life and mine stand in the balance, don’t they? And slowing down and allowing our vehicles to be monitored will not impede freedom.