A Silver Lining for Gas Prices: Safer Highways
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The News & Advance
Published: July 30, 2008
If you’re looking for a silver lining in those ridiculously high gasoline prices, and who isn’t, here’s something to consider. With more people trying to reduce their gas bills by consolidating trips and staying off the road, traffic deaths around the country are dropping.
That was the word from the National Safety Council last week. The agency reported a 9 percent drop in motor vehicle deaths overall through May, compared with the first five months of 2007. That included an 18 percent drop in March and 14 percent in April.
Experts say a slumping economy and fuel prices have brought down the number of road fatalities in a hurry.
“When the economy is in the tank and fuel prices are high, you typically see a decline in miles driven and traffic deaths,” said John Ulczycki, the council’s executive director for transportation safety.
In Virginia, traffic fatalities are down about 18 percent, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. As of last Tuesday, 456 people had died on Virginia roads this year as a result of traffic accidents. During the same period in 2007, the total stood at 552.
Some states have reported declines in traffic deaths of 20 percent or more.
The last time road deaths fell this fast and this sharply was during the Arab oil embargo in 1973-1974, when fatalities tumbled 17 percent, from about 55,100 to 46,000; and as states raised the drinking age to 21 in 1982-83, when fatalities fell 11 percent, from roughly 49,300 to 44,000.
Chuck Hurley, a former official with the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said half of the decline in road deaths during the 1970s was attributed to high gas prices. The remainder was linked to the lowering of freeway speed limits to 55 mph.
As evidence that Americans are beginning to take fuel conservation seriously, federal officials have also reported the first decline in miles driven on U.S. roads since 1979. Business at roadside convenience stores has slowed and the tourism industry is prepared for a downturn this summer.
Nationwide, according to a market research firm survey reported by The Washington Post, about 8 percent of Americans say they have changed their commuting patterns and are taking public transportation. The same share of respondents said they would vacation closer to home this summer because of rising gas prices.
Americans are beginning to show that they can conserve gasoline and other forms of energy if the price gets high enough for them to make a decision that has a direct bearing on their pocketbooks. If that’s the lesson from $4 a gallon gasoline, let the record show that the nation is learning and has responded.
That response, by the way, is also beginning to bring down the price of oil and gasoline. That’s the ultimate goal. If Americans can save some lives by staying off the road and driving slower, so much the better.
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Posted by ( Fred ) on July 31, 2008 at 3:15 pm
What “ridiculously high gasoline prices”?
Europeans pay from $8 to $10 a gallon. That does not keep them from having a better quality of life than here.
Waste does not contribute to quality of life, regardless of what Dick Cheney says! But it certainly contributes to the destruction of the planet.
A paving contractor came a few days ago to discuss with a neighbor the repaving of his driveway. They talked for way over half an hour. The engine of the contractor’s truck kept running all that time to keep the cab cool. Obviously, $4 a gallon is not high enough!
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 31, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I think Jimmy is in Georgia Dave. But, knowing him, he could be almost anywhere. I don’t know about the 55mph business Dave. When me and the old “ball&chain;“ head out on the chopper for the Labor Day Hell’s Angels ride, to terrorize some out of the way little town, she likes speed! She may be a mean old bird Dave….. but she’s clean. And I do love her so.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 31, 2008 at 8:21 am
This Editorial Opinion got me thinking. And LOOKING! There are some BIG “Silver Linings” going on in government. In Lynchburg less cars means a pressing need for a $50,000 person to be in charge of [Parking]. In Amherst County a decrease in tourism, not that they had any to begin with (or wanted any), means a pressing need for a $40,000 Tourism Director. In the Amherst Prosecutors Office the Lawyers appear to be multiplying like rabbits. Expecting a 400% increase in crime are we? TV jacks have been installed to save taxpayers money on Workman’s Compensation claims from all those repetitive motion injuries incurred from hour after hour of employees being forced to play computer solitaire. But, that isn’t what has got me curious. What really has me scratching my head is the turning of the Amherst Town Hall into a 21st Century Alamo. Bulletproof glass all around! Are they expecting something we don’t know about? Is the REAL “Silver Lining” the fact that property re-evaluations and property taxes skyrocketed at the same time what taxpayers property is worth dropped like a stone down a well? Perhaps, as the fuel oil trucks start to roll and AEP gets their 26% increase they are thinking they all may very well NEED a place to make a final stand. As all of the citizens tighten their belts, government finds themselves swimming in cash that MUST be spent! You can only build so many new parks and install so many mahogany doors with $1,300 door knobs you know. From what I understand they are comming close to running out of relatives to hire. All I can say is the old folks out there, the people on fixed incomes and those who have had their hours cut back or lost their jobs…well…they should thank their lucky stars they don’t have these problems. And, when you come to town to pay your water bill, keep both hands above your head and in plain sight if you don’t mind.
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Posted by ( David McLoughlin ) on July 31, 2008 at 7:18 am
Yes Cosmos Lots of silver linings. If we could only get 55 mph. Where is Jimmy Carter when we need him. Not the best of our presidents but certainly one of our best past presidents. We could sure use his 1970’s foresight.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 31, 2008 at 3:00 am
It’s just like the “silver lining” that comes with famine. With people having nothing to eat the rates of obesity begin to drop. As the N&A;so aptly puts it, “so much the better.“ As prices go through the roof on just about everything and people have less and less money left over at the end of the week we should expect no problems getting a good parking space at The Mall this Christmas season. Less presents under the tree means less wrapping paper used. Less paper means more trees. More trees means more oxygen production. We will all “breathe” a little easier, as you can see, now that our economy is in the tank. Gotta love those “silver linings”.
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