GUN violence in America gets plenty of attention, but cars kill more. Around 40,000 people a year die on American roads, more than all fatalities caused by firearms (of which two-thirds are suicides, not homicides). The death rate in America, around 12 people per 100,000, is more than twice that of western Europe. The grim toll of motor-vehicle deaths is widely seen as unavoidable, given that the United States is a large, sprawling country primarily designed around the automobile. However, around a third of these deaths involved drunk drivers, suggesting that there is, in fact, substantial room for improvement. And fortunately, it appears that the advent of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft has had a welcome impact on road safety.

This seems like common sense at the surface. The easier access people have to safety measures against drunk driving, the more likely people are to use it. The data in the article is interesting, however, due to the subsequent spikes in drunk driving that Queens and Brooklyn (to a lesser extent) experienced. Not sure what's causing those.

posted 2572 days ago