Road to Terrorism?
For an updated version of this story see:
http://arch1design.com/blog/?p=5044
“Terrorism is the greatest threat of the 21st century”, a phrase often uttered by our leading politicians. Arch1 tends to disagree. Though not as glamorous and media friendly, we feel the ‘Car Crash’ could become / already is a leading contender for that role.
Lets look at few numbers.
In the past 38 years, the MIPT-RAND Corporation database records on average 375 deaths per year worldwide are due to terrorism. This compares with roughly the same number of people who drown in bathtubs in the United States alone (about 320).
Lets narrow it down:
0: People killed in the USA by terrorism/WMD in 2008.
0: People killed in the USA by terrorism/WMD in 2007.
0: People killed in the USA by terrorism/WMD in 2006.
0: People killed in the USA by terrorism/WMD in 2005.
0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2004.
0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2003.
0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2002.
2,752: in USA killed by terrorism in 2001 (all on “9/11″).
0: People in the USA killed by terrorism/WMD in 2000.
0: People in the UK killed by terrorism/WMD in 2000.
Terrorism, by its very nature, is a mixture of violence and theater. It accomplishes its immediate goal by setting a time-honored trap. This trap is for an organized society to overreact(Fred J. Hansen).
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the sole superpower quickly decided to invade Afghanistan and Iraq attempting to punish the guilty and protect the American public from future attacks.
At what cost?
According to the Congressional Research Service, the war effort itself has had a price tag of $409 billion so far.
Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government’s budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programs to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.
Now lets compare that with a few numbers from car crashes.
Research by the World Heath Organization has forecast that between 2000 and 2015 road accidents would cause 20 million deaths, 200 million serious injuries.
There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these accidents is more than 230 billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United states – one death every 13 minutes.
We can narrow this down even further. In 2006, there were 13,470 fatalities in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver 32 percent of total traffic fatalities for the year. The 13,470 alcohol-impaired-driving fatalities in 2006 were almost the same as compared to 13,451 alcohol-impaired-driving fatalities reported in 1996. Ten years of progress.
The 13,470 fatalities in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes during 2006 represent an average of one alcohol-impaired-driving fatality every 39 minutes.
Every 39 minutes – wow! Now you’d expect the US government to come down hard on these figures. After all, it has invaded 2 countries on the premise of stopping terrorists from killing its citizens.
The punishments vary significantly from state to state. All drink driving offenses carry potential jail sentences. However, most first offenders are given lesser punishments, such as driver’s license restrictions, fines, mandatory attendance of drunk driver’s education classes, mandatory attendance of “Alcoholics Anonymous” meetings or alcohol counseling, community service, or probation.
Hardly a great deterrent.
What can be done to reduce the car crash ?
Should we put more police on the road?Add lanes to reduce congestion? Reduce speed limits? Convert signals to roundabouts? Educate children on safety? Test the road skills of seniors? Put high-tech stuff into cars? Subsidize rail and buses to reduce car use? Provide bicycle lanes? Build subways to diminish exposure? Do more research?
Myth: Spending more money on roads makes us safer.
Fact: Spending more money on roads encourages more trips to be made by car and fewer by public transport, walking or cycling. Increased traffic volumes mean more crashes, regardless of how big the roads are.
Overall….there is nothing wrong with the modern car. Nor is there anything very wrong with our roads. Despite the criticisms, we have relatively safe roads…. Rather, it is the lack of preparation for the journey and the aggressive, irrational, often non-thinking behavior that all too often characterizes the driver. Put simply, our road death toll is high because we are not using our brains.
—Emeritus Professor Roger Rees, Flinders University School of Medicine, in The Age, 22 April 2006
So is it not time to start taking the car off the road? The individual driver cannot be trusted. Is it not time to start thinking of improving our public transportation system. You have to give the car owner a better option before he forgoes his car. Getting to a destination point quicker, in comfort and for free may help.
Overland subway systems based on MAGLEV, or magnetic levitation, is a system of transportation that suspends, guides and propels vehicles, predominantly trains, using levitation from a very large number of magnets for lift and propulsion.
This method has the potential to be faster, quieter and smoother than wheeled mass transit systems. The technology has the potential to exceed 4,000 mph (6,437 km/h) if deployed in an evacuated tube.
The initial cost may be high but hey if we can spend billions of dollars on chasing terrorists and fighting wars while billions of $ are lost on car crash accidents, then surely the cost can be equated.
Until this time arises we also suggest zero tolerance for drink driving and a minimum of 5 years incarceration. If a suspected terrorist walked down Fifth Avenue with a .50-caliber rifle how long would it be before a SWAT team was pumping him full of lead? Or if he actually shot and killed someone, he gets life. Similar harsh penalties are required for drunk drivers. They are killing people at a rate of every 39 mins.
It’s time for our politicians to act and address this situation. However unglamourous its cause, a death’s a death after all. When 115 people are killed every day, something ought to be done to protect the public and curb this terror from within.
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Latest News
Newswise — About 3.5 million motor vehicle crash victims were treated in emergency departments in 2006 for injuries ranging from scrapes and bruises to life-threatening trauma, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Roughly 85 percent, or 3 million, of the crash victims were treated and released, while another 321,000 were admitted or transferred to another acute care hospital for inpatient care. About 8,000 victims died in the emergency department.
The federal agency’s analysis of motor vehicle accident victims treated in hospital emergency departments in 2006 also found that:
• Thirty-seven percent of crash victims were treated in hospital trauma centers that were equipped to provide comprehensive emergency medical care to people who suffer life-threatening injuries. The remaining patients were treated in hospitals not designated as trauma centers.
• About 25 percent of the victims were uninsured; 55 percent had private health insurance; 10 percent were covered under Medicaid; 4 percent, under Medicare; and the remaining 7 percent had other types of coverage.
• Sprains accounted for 44 percent of the injuries treated; superficial injuries such as scrapes, accounted for 35 percent; open wounds 10 percent; and head injuries accounted for 5 percent of the motor vehicle injuries seen in the emergency department. Other types of injuries included fractures (about 15 percent) and internal injuries of the thorax, abdomen and pelvis (3 percent).
This AHRQ News and Numbers is based on data in Emergency Department Visits Associated with Motor Vehicle Accidents, 2006 (http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb84.pdf). The report uses statistics from the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a database of hospital inpatient stays that is nationally representative of inpatient stays in all short-term, non-Federal hospitals. The data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all discharges in the United States and include all patients, regardless of insurance type, as well as the uninsured.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Hi, cool post. I have been wondering about this topic,so thanks for writing.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Good, up to a point. There are many miles of substandard roads, and many miles of ill-maintained roads in this country. Landslides, roadbed collapses, substandard safety devices such as dated guardrails and engineering all contribute to injuries and fatalities every year. We as a country need to focus less on possible external threats and more on identified internal ones. Infrastructure needs to be a primary goal for the foreseeable future.