The world is in mourning over the
terrorist attacks in Paris where about 130 people died and many more
were injured, and rightly so. In the United States, people are
updating their Facebook profiles to support the victims of that
attack, while police and other security agencies are stepping up
efforts to protect American citizens from similar attacks.
Meanwhile, we have much more deadly terrorists ravaging our nation on
a daily basis, putting the 9/11 and Paris attackers to shame by
comparison. I speaking of the drunk drivers, reckless drivers,
texting drivers, otherwise distracted drivers, and plain old
mistake-prone drivers who slaughter over 33,000 fellow Americans on a
YEARLY basis.
Statistics from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and National Safety Council
(NSC) show that about 100 Americans die every day on U.S. Roadways:
So, in less than two days the number of
Americans killed in automobile accidents exceed the lives lost in the
Paris attacks. This continues day-after-day, month-after-month, and
year-after-year with bodies piling up in massive numbers. Since
9/11, over 500,000 Americans have died thanks to traffic accidents –
that is roughly equivalent to 172 repeats of 9/11 (or 9/11 every 5
weeks) happening at a personal level, shattering the lives of
individuals and families as these losses pile up. None of these
families receive the kind of federal monetary compensation that 9/11
victims received. Beyond fatalities, about 4.5 million Americans are
injured in car accidents every year. This is dramatically lowering
quality of life, increasing medical costs, increasing insurance
costs, increasing legal costs, and lowering worker productivity.
If 100 people were dying every day in
plane crashes, there would be a national outcry and politicians would
be sparing no expense trying to fund programs that prevent future
accidents. If 100 people were dying in terrorist attacks every day,
the national guard would be deployed in every state and martial law
would be in place. Yet for some reason we complacently sit back and
let 100 Americans die each day on the road and see scores more
injured – even though the technology EXISTS TODAY to prevent many
if not the majority of these accidents. The need for that safety
technology is growing exponentially as we now have our youth
constantly distracted by another new technology – the smart phone –
while they drive. A NSC study in May indicated that about 27% of
all car crashes are now due to cell phone use:
Meanwhile, as Americans are living
longer, we will have more elderly people on the road driving with
declining reaction times, raising the probability of many more tragic
accidents that will ruin the lives of all involved.
The carnage needs
to end and we now have the technology to drastically reduce
vehicle accidents if automakers are REQUIRED to
install these collision avoidance features in ALL NEW VEHICLES by the
2018 model year. Currently most of these enhanced safety
features are “optional” unless purchasing a high end luxury car,
but they could be available to everyone if the U.S. Congress passed
legislation to mandate it:
Auto-makers and consumer advocates may
argue that requiring such features would make cars too expensive for
the poor. To that I again say, if 100 people were dying every day
from terrorist attacks or plane crashes, Congress would be willing to
fund/subsidize whatever program or safety features would be necessary
to dramatically reduce those numbers. If congress or states are
willing to give tax credits to rich people buying $80,000 Tesla
electric vehicles, then certainly they can find a way to give
credits to lower-income people that buy cars with MANDATORY safety
features.
Think of all of the ancillary cost
savings that will accumulate over time as these safety features
appear on American roadways on ALL NEW VEHICLES starting in 2018.
Car Insurance costs will become minuscule by 2025 as fatalities and
injuries and even car accident damage repair costs become an uncommon
occurrence. Similarly, avoiding the massive health costs associated with
treating the injured from automobile accidents would certainly lower
the trajectory of health insurance costs for all Americans. Legal
expenses would go down naturally, and disability fraud would go down
as people could no longer “fake” disability due to car accidents.
Taking things a step further, the
tragedy occurring on U.S. Roadways every day makes it worth funding
retrofits of existing cars to take advantage of at least some level
of accident avoidance technology. We shouldn't wait for the safety
technology to be introduced through new cars only. Often our most
dangerous drivers (the very new/young drivers, very old drivers, or
dangerous/drunk drivers) are the ones who will be driving older cars
that don't have crash avoidance technology. Do we really need more
senseless loss of our youth? Incentives to retrofit could come in
the form of tax credits or rebates.
If we are willing to spend billions to
stop the future threat of global warming that hasn't killed a single
American, why wouldn't we want to invest in the lives of
Americans today by doing whatever we can to make our roads safe to
drive on?
