Traffic Payout

If I told you there is an epidemic taking more than 100 lives a day would you be afraid, inquisitive, alarmed, outraged? Just over 100 people on average die each day in the United States as a result of car crashes. This epidemic is taking the lives of mothers, fathers, children, brothers, and sisters.

The recent coverage of air travel from the NTSB hearing on medical helicopter safety, to the miraculous landing of the airliner in the Hudson River, to today’s unfortunate and tragic airliner crash into a home in Buffalo, NY all highlight the obstacles ahead of us striving to reduce traffic related deaths and injuries.

Are car crashes deemed unavoidable or simply seen as the price we must pay for mobility? There is no doubt both of these plane crashes deserved a great deal of attention, but where is the public outcry and attention for those who die in car crashes?

I would argue if 100 people died each day as a result of national air travel in the U.S. there would be a public outcry to make air travel safer. The question remains as to how we harness individual outrage over traffic related deaths and injuries into a public outcry that can’t be ignored.