I rarely drive above 50 mph without thinking, "This is the most likely way I could die today."
Conversely, when I get off the freeway and return to the surface streets on my way home, I always feel relief, knowing is it almost impossible to die while driving slower than 30 mph.
Why do we tolerate thousands of unnecessary road deaths a year?
Greg Easterbook writes in the Los Angeles Times:
Relative to passenger-miles traveled, traffic fatalities have declined in the United States owing to anti-lock brakes, air bags, impact engineering (a hidden safety feature of most new vehicles) and the big rise in shoulder-harness use (your seat belt is much more important to safety than air bags). Tougher laws and social awareness have reduced drunk driving. Yet fatalities per mile traveled have not fallen as much as might be expected given improved technology and less alcohol-impaired driving. There appear to be two key reasons: cellphones and horsepower.
