Fatalities from traffic accidents rose last year.
The number of U.S. traffic deaths rose nearly 1 percent in 2003 and reached a 13-year high at 43,220, the government reported on Wednesday.
It was the fifth straight year road deaths rose, although passenger car fatalities decreased. Sport utility vehicle deaths went up roughly 10 percent over 2002, with more than half of the victims in those crashes killed in rollovers. Motorcycle deaths also jumped.
It’s gotta be from people boozin’ while driving, right?
Forty percent of all fatalities, or 17,401 deaths, were alcohol-related, essentially unchanged from 2002.
So that can’t be the reason for the rise in deaths. Hmm, I wonder.
Sport utility deaths went up by 456 with more than two- thirds of victims not wearing seat belts, the safety agency said.
“A large part of the problem is keeping all four wheels on the roadway,” Runge told reporters about the rollover propensity of SUVs. Some manufacturers have addressed the problem but Runge wants more safety changes. For instance, his agency is proposing a standard to improve the strength of vehicle roofs to reduce rollover deaths.
Your Escalade ain’t a tank, lady. And stop talking on you cell phone while driving. Good luck getting the industry to adopt a new standard. On a serious note, what can we do to stop these unnecessary deaths?
In 2003, more than half of those killed in passenger vehicles were not wearing safety belts.
Simple. Wear your safety belt, stupid!
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Not to get all Darwin on you … wait, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do: if you are driving and you do not wear your seat belt and you get into an accident and you die — and the injury would have been prevented by wearing the seat belt — I’m not going to be particularly upset over this. What I do get pissed off about is that it seems that all the frickin SUVs on the roads make the world a more dangerous place for me and my little Neon. All for Suburban Assault Vehicles and the status symbols they are. Oh, and I’m glad when gas prices get really high. Maybe these dicks will think about that the next time they buy a car that guzzles a natural resource.
Remember, before being anit-war/Bush made you a traitor, being anti-SUV made you one.