The American Highway Holocaust

• More than three million men, women, and children died on America's roads and highways in the Twentieth Century.

• This is five times as many Americans as died in all the wars ever fought since the US Constitution was ratified.

• Our MVFR (Motor Vehicle Fatality Rate) is 45.8% higher than Germany even though Germany has no speed limits on their Autobahns, 70% of their drivers drink alcohol and drive, and they consume 55% more alcohol per capita than we do.

• Our MVFR is almost three times higher than England even though England has a higher speed limit and drinks 10% more alcohol per capita than we do.

• The Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/queryReport.cfm?stateid=0&year=1999 reports that American men who drink and drive are one fourteenth as likely to have a fatal accident as American women who don't drink at all.

• While MADD proclaims that they saved 67,000 lives from drinking drivers since 1983, there were more than five times as many additional heart disease deaths due solely to the reduction in alcohol consumption during that time.

• The US has more citizens behind bars just for drinking and driving than Japan has behind bars for all crimes, combined.

• Only 7% of all transportation vehicle accidents are alcohol related.

• More than 6,000 more men die in traffic accidents annually due solely to the higher accident rate of women drivers--twice as many lives as MADD claims to save each year from drunk drivers.

• If only drinking White men drove all highway miles, the lifetime odds of an American dying in a traffic accident would decrease from 1 in 80 to 1 in 247, a rate equivalent to England.

• How NHTSA manipulated the data.

• How interference by Government  increased our MVFR.

Download an Excel Spreadsheet of the original data for analysis here.

There were 58,847 drivers involved in 41,967 traffic fatalities in the US in 1997, which is a Motor Vehicle Fatality Rate of 15.6.  Per the 1999 US Statistical Abstract international comparison of statistics http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.census.gov]/jump/http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec30.pdf  this is 45.8% higher than Germany's rate of 10.7 and almost three times higher than England's rate of 5.6.  Had our MVFR been equivalent to Germany's, there would have been 13,181 fewer Americans killed on the highways that year, and if it had been equivalent to England's, 26,900 fewer Americans would have died.  In a two year period, this extraordinary MVFR caused the deaths of more Americans than died during the entire Vietnam War.  If it continues like this for the next three decades, with normal population growth, we will have another 968,400 *extra* highway deaths compared to England, twice as many Americans as died during all of the wars ever fought by the US.

The following summary of the data from the FARS database disputes MADD's claims totally:

• 58,847 drivers were involved in 41,967 fatal accidents in the US in 1997
• Women constitute 37% of the drivers in fatal accidents and 30% of the total miles driven.
• Blacks constitute 14.5% of the drivers in fatal accidents and 7.4% of the total miles driven.
• Whites (including all other non-blacks) constitute 85.5% of the drivers in fatal accidents and 92.6% of the total miles driven.
• Drinking men drivers constitute 21.5% of the men drivers in fatal accidents and 70% of the total miles driven by men.
• Drinking women drivers constitute 7.1% of the women drivers in fatal accidents and 30% of the total miles driven by women.
• Non-drinking men drivers constitute 78.5% of the men drivers in fatal accidents and 30% of the total miles driven by men.
• Non-drinking women drivers constitute 92.9% of the women drivers in fatal accidents and 70% of the total miles driven by women.
• Per mile driven, compared to a drinking White man driver who is involved in 9 fatal accidents per billion miles driven:
  • A non-drinking black man driver is involved in 164 accidents per billion miles, making him 18 times more likely to have a fatal accident.
  • A non-drinking black woman driver is involved in 158 fatal accidents per billion miles, making her 17 times more likely to have a fatal accident.
  • At 77, a non-drinking White man driver is 9 times more likely.
  • At 49, a non-drinking White woman driver is 5 times more likely.
  • At 24, a drinking Black woman driver is 2.7 times more likely.
  • At 19, a drinking Black man driver is 2.1 times more likely.
  • At 11.5, a drinking White woman driver is 30% more likely.
• The odds each year of an English driver being involved in a fatal crash are 1 in 17,857.
• The odds each year of a German driver being killed in a fatal crash are 1 in 9,346.
• The odds each year of a German driver being involved in a fatal crash are 1 in 6,676.
• The odds each year of an American driver being killed in a fatal crash are 1 in 6,314.
• The odds each year of an American driver being involved in a fatal crash are 1 in 4,503.
• At 15,000 miles per year of travel for each of the following groups:
  • The odds of a drinking White man driver being in a fatal accident are 1 in 7,380.
  • The odds for a drinking White woman driver are 1 in 5,814.
  • The odds for a drinking Black man driver are 1 in 3,478.
  • The odds for a drinking Black woman driver are 1 in 2,740.
  • The odds for a non-drinking White woman driver are 1 in 1,362.
  • The odds for a non-drinking White man driver are 1 in 865.
  • The odds for a non-drinking Black woman driver are 1 in 423.
  • The odds for a non-drinking Black man driver are 1 in 408.
• If only men drove there would be 4,256 fewer traffic fatalities per year but if only women drove there would be 9,930 more.
• If only White men drove there would be 7,147 fewer traffic fatalities but if only black men drove there would be 31,927 more.
• If only drinking drivers drove there would be 29,985 fewer traffic fatalities but if only non-drinking drivers drove there would be 38,946 more.
• If only White drinking drivers drove there would be 30,093 fewer traffic fatalities but if only non-drinking black men drove there would be 151,453 more.
• If only White drinking men drove there would be 31,285 fewer traffic fatalities but if only White non-drinking women drove there would be 15,904 more.

Review and/or critique the original spreadsheet with this data and the calculations.

2,870 men and 442 women were killed in accidents involving cycles, snowmobiles, farm and construction equipment, and other vehicles which don't contribute to highway mileage.  When adjusted for these accidents, the average fatality rate for men drivers drops by 9.4% (from 31.9 to 28.9) and for women drivers by 2.2% (from 43.9 to 42.9).  This adjustment increases the accident rate for women from 38% higher than men to 48% higher.

The known lower average hand/eye coordination, SAT scores, work ethics, and employee competence as measured by lower incomes, of blacks and women, should cause a just society to seriously reconsider the impact that such drivers are predicted to have on such a high MVFR over the next three decades.  The annual odds of an American being killed in a traffic accident is 1 in 6,314, whereas for a German it is 1 in 9,346, and for an Englishman it is 1 in 17,857.  The annual odds of an American driver being involved in a fatal accident are 1 in 4,503, for a German driver are 1 in 6,676, and for an Englishman are 1 in 12,755.  Both Germany and England have no or very high speed limits, in contrast to 55 to 65 mph in the US, and 70% of German drivers openly acknowledge that they drink and drive, which is proof that our accident rate can be reduced, and that neither the speed limits nor drinking and driving laws are the way to do it:

Pfafferott (1993) surveyed the self-reported drinking-driving attitudes and behaviours and found that over 60% of former East Germans reported to never drive under the influence of alcohol, compared to under 30% of the West Germans.  http://www.raru.adelaide.edu.au/T95/paper/s15p4.html

If speed limits & drinking and driving laws don't work, then what does?

The NHTSA data shows that White men [that is, all men besides black men] have the lowest fatality rate in the US, at 31 fatal accidents per billion miles driven. Black women on the other hand have a rate almost three times higher, at 91.9.  In between are White women at 48.4 and black men at 65.1.  If only White  men drove on our roads and highways, there would be 9,270 fewer highway fatalities per year, which would reduce our odds of dying in a traffic fatality to one out of 8,105, not too far off from Germany's odds of 9,346 but still almost twice as high as England's.   Conversely, if only black women drove there would be 54,946 more fatalities, if only black men drove there would be 26,696 more, and if only White women drove there would be 9,040 more.

The fact that both blacks and women drive in both Germany and England suggests that there is more involved than their higher propensity to have a fatal accident, but Autobahns in Germany look much like our freeways (since our freeways were copied after the Autobahn concept).  The mistake we made was not copying the laws too.  With no speed limits, with cars driving literally 120 miles per hour, with much worse weather than most parts of the US, with a population density more than 8 times greater ( 590 inhabitants per square mile in Germany vs. ours of 72), with much mountainous terrain, the German motor vehicle fatality rate is consistently lower than ours, which by itself disproves the cynical hypotheses that "speed kills" or "drunk drivers are a menace to society".   With the high population density of Germany, it's not too hard to understand how traffic congestion would build up pretty fast if they drove only 55 mph, which provides insight into why Germany has such a low MVFR.
 
The Montana "paradox" is an example of Americans discovering that the Autobahns they copied from Germany DO work as intended, when they are used as they were originally designed--for high speed and low congestion, which of course go hand in hand.  The cynical hypotheses that a driver in his own car seeing the road and cars around him isn't as good a decision maker about how to operate his own car as a judge sitting on a wooden bench in a remote location, under fluorescent lights, all day, is not only not supported by the data:  it is repugnant to the US Constitution.  Bureaucrats and lawmakers must think that as soon as a responsible citizen gets into his car, he suddenly becomes a child who has to have bureaucrats making decisions for him which even children are capable of making in their own sand boxes without the aid of the law. 

Montana, Germany, and England are proof that citizens are not that childish and judges are not that smart.  They are living proof that the cynicism that buried the US under a mountain of laws is unwarranted at the least, and are most likely part of the problem.
 
Understanding statistics like these from Montana require just a LITTLE knowledge of algebra, and probability and statistics and reveals that NHTSA data paints an entirely different picture of highway safety than the "mainstream media" wants us to know.  The page at http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=fathersmanifesto.com]/jump/http://fathersmanifesto.com/dui.htm might be of interest to anyone who is curious about this. 

The real "paradox" is that Americans accept that drinking drivers are a road hazard when the fact is that 72% of fatal accidents which involve men drivers and 90.5% of the fatal accidents which involve women drivers involved only non-drinking drivers.  This, by itself, should make curious, thinking citizens question the feminist mantra that "drinking drivers cause accidents", even before considering what percentage of Americans drink and drive.

MVFR overview from the National Transportation Safety Board

Overall, women drivers are 38% more likely per mile driven to have a fatal traffic accident, but when pedestrian, snow mobile, farm and construction machinery, go cart, motor cycle, and other high risk, low highway mileage vehicle accidents are removed, that increases to 46% more.  This higher accident rate of women increases the accident rate for men by 28%, so if only men drove all the miles currently driven by both men and women, the fatal accident rate per billion miles would be 23 and the total number of fatal accidents on the highways would be 34,500, which is 15,425 or 31% fewer fatal accidents.

Not including men pedestrians who were killed by women drivers, which show up in the statistics as a man fatality, more than 10,000 traffic fatalities per year, 6,200 of which are men, are due solely and directly to the higher propensity for women to have an accident.

One fiftieth as many wives are murdered by their husbands, yet Congress spends billions of dollars to try to curb "domestic violence".  One eighth as many children are murdered by their mothers, yet Congress spends hundreds of billions of dollars per year to enforce CAPTA (under the Mondale Act) to curb child abuse.  Half as many men died in combat in Vietnam each year.  If you are naive enough to believe the completely absurd proposition that DUI laws work, then you believe that these laws saved less than a quarter as many lives each year. One third as many women are murdered, yet we spend $390 billion per year make American men one third of the men in the world behind bars in order to reduce crime   One half as many women commit suicide.

Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.   Permitting American women to drive in the US is directly responsible for one million additional deaths on the roads and highways in the Twentiety Century.