< rant >

Sometime's I wonder if journalists ever think about what they write, or if they just recompile their spoon-fed notes into 8th grade level reading material. I was reading CNN, as I usually check the top headlines, and ran across an article talking about how Driving faster is less safe. Seems like a logical statement, but the facts presented in the article leave much to be desired. They use two sets of statistics to draw their conclusion.

First, when the speed limit was dropped in the 70's, highway fatalities decreased. Not a bad statistic, unless you consider that cars were also becoming much safer to drive, seat belt useage, drunk driving laws, etc. As always, looking at only half the picture is deceiving. Really, they would need to look at the cause of the fatalities. For example, if there were fewer accidents caused by drunk driving, that really has little to do with lowering the speed limit. So, simply stating that the total number of deaths dropped is really an inconclusive fact, which does not in and of itself support the claim that lower speeds are safer.

The second statistic sighted is that the number of highway fatalities has risen since the speed limit has gone back up. One would hope that cars have not become less safe, however I cannot totally be supportive of that assumption. There are more SUV's on the road today, and it pisses me off that people think SUV's are safer to drive. The simple fact is, they aren't. They are less maneuverable, and have more mass, and more inertia, so more energy in a collision - look at it from a physics point of view. To see this trend in vehicle weight, percentage of cars/trucks/SUVs, and other fun things check out these facts gathered by the EPA. So there's more dangerous vehicles on the road, as SUV's have become a status symbol of sorts. Also, I would wager to bet there is more traffic. More traffic causes more accidents in two ways. First, if the safety is the same, doubling the number of drivers will double the number of accidents. But, I wager to bet it's a higher rate of growth. More congestion causes dangerous situations to become more dangerous, accidents to be bigger, more deaths in a single accident, etc. So, again, simply giving me a statistic that accidents increased without accounting for these other factors, well, its moronic in my opinion. At least mention them, even if you can't do calculations. By ignoring them, you're doing the public a huge injustice.

< /rant >