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Study shows fatal car accidents down due to higher gas prices; Do you drive slower than you used to?
by Joan Lowy | The Associated Press
Monday August 25, 2008, 6:27 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Roll back the clock to 1961: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president. The Peace Corps was founded. The Dow Jones industrials hit 734. Gasoline reached 31 cents a gallon.
| Question of the day: |
And the number of people killed in U.S. traffic accidents that year topped 36,200.
This year, gasoline climbed over $4 a gallon, and the traffic death toll -- according to one study -- appears headed to the lowest levels since Kennedy moved into the White House.
The number is being pulled down by a change in Americans' driving habits, which is fueled largely by record high gasoline prices, according to the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan.
The institute's study -- which covers 12 months ending in April -- found that as gas prices rose, driving and fatalities declined. The surprise, said Professor Michael Sivak, author of the study, was the huge decline in fatalities in March and April as gasoline prices surged above $3.20 a gallon.
Over the previous 10 months, monthly fatalities declined an average of 4.2 percent compared with the previous year. Then, Sivak's data shows, fatalities dropped 22.1 percent in March and 17.9 percent in April of this year -- numbers that did not show up in a recent federal report that tracked a drop in traffic deaths through the end of 2007.
The declines found by Sivak suggest that motorists reached what he calls a "tipping point" and have begun significantly changing their behavior -- altering not only how much they drive, but where, when and how they drive. Sivak said early data for May and June show similar trends.
"There is something more than just the reduction in driving that has to be brought in as an explanation for the huge drop in fatalities," Sivak said.
If the pattern continues for the rest of this year, it would lead to "an unheard of improvement" in motor vehicle fatalities, said Sivak, who used data from the National Safety Council, National Center for Health Statistics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Sivak predicts that highway deaths this year will drop below 37,000 for the first time since 1961 if the March and April trends continue. The government motor vehicle death count for 1961 totaled 36,285. The number of highway deaths peaked in 1972 at 55,600, then generally declined over the next two decades. For the past several years, the number has hovered above 42,000 a year.
NHTSA reported last week that motor vehicle deaths in the United States totaled 41,059 last year, the lowest level in more than a decade. And the Federal Highway Administration said Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than a year earlier, the biggest monthly decrease in a downward trend that began in November.
Experts who have studied motor vehicle fatality trends said one reason for the dramatic decline is that people are reducing their nonessential driving first, which is often leisure driving at night or on weekends. That also happens to be riskier than daylight commuting on congested highways at lower speeds.
Teenage and elderly drivers -- who also have higher accident rates -- are more likely to feel the pinch of higher gas prices, and thus may be cutting back more than other drivers. Federal data also show that driving declines have been more dramatic on rural roads, which have higher accident rates than urban highways.
And, some drivers are simply trying to save on gas by slowing down, which also decreases risk.
"It's really very interesting that with all these efforts that have gone into building safer highways, safer cars, better enforcement ... this really dramatic change we're seeing is due to economics, to the price of gasoline," said Paul Fischbeck, director of Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation at Carnegie Mellon University.
Poll needs a third option:
Stopped driving/cut back total miles driven
dtowntrain,
I thought about that when I created the poll, but because the article focused on gas prices and speed I decided to stick to that. But yours was a good suggestion.
We're currently experiencing technical difficulties with the poll toll I prefer to use (thus all the error message you might have seen on older polls) so I have to use this backup poll tool, which doesn't let me change the wording or add answer options without creating an entirely new question. So if I did add in your third option I would lose the votes already cast.
FYI, to all. If any of you have poll questions on stories posted feel free to pass them along to me by either sending me an e-mail (mbach@flintjournal.com) or posting a suggestion on the story. I'm always looking for ideas. I may not always be able to use them, but I'll definitely consider them. Thanks!
Matt Bach
Community Conversation Producer
Flint Journal
mbach@flintjournal.com
(810) 766-6330
See what's new at mlive.com/flintjournal
I drove to Eastern Canada to visit relatives recently. Gas prices in Canada are about $5 a gallon, and I noticed that people are driving much slower on long trips. The speed limit is 62 miles per hour on expressway in Canada and many cars were driving the speed limit. Two years ago, when I made the same trip cars were driving much faster. When approaching cities like Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec, you notice that local drivers going about their daily business drive faster, but people driving through stay with a slower, more even speed.
At first I slowed down until I didn't find that I was saving any significant amount of money/fuel. What really got me to slow down is when I was pulled over while driving 60mph in a 55 and was told by the officer that I was driving 72mph. I couldn't argue that I was going the speed limit and besides, it's my word against his.
AutoPacific (research & consulting agency) reported that it had not seen meaningful change in drivers' habits until fuel reached about $3.40 per gallon. Findings were derived from their consumer survey panel, and defined "change" as driving slower, less often, use of car pools, combining trips, etc.
Anecdotally: no noticeable change in the number of 1500-series trucks & SUVs blowing past me on I-75 during the commute. When I peg the Ion at 60 and stay in the right lane I save almost enough to pay for lunch... Thinking that fuel prices must eventually draw down the obesity epidemic. Me? I'd rather eat than haul-booty.
See? High prices are a GREAT thing for the American driver after all. The "study" says so. No hidden agenda with this study group, that's for sure.
Lower fatality rates couldn't possibly be caused by fewer people communting to work or safer cars on the highways. Nope...it's the gas price that's doing it.
Maybe it's too late in the day for this, but why don't you blitzkrieg us with your interpretation of the apparent "hidden agenda."
Econ 101 says that demand shrinks when prices spike, and stories like this one are just reminders of the phenomenon of price elasticity. Also, it's probably Logic 101 and Stats 101 that tell us that the relationship described above is an example of correlation, not causation.
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