In article ,
Chrissy Cruiser wrote:
> It has everything to do with what actually drives this country and that is
> Big Business. BB buys the politicos, keeps us in a perpetual state of War,
> BB wants to sell tobaccy, BB loves big medical bills, etc.
>
> BB also drove home the seat belt issue. In order to keep speeds up, w/ the
> death rate climbing on the highways, post - Interstate, BB came up with
> several measures all which filled their oil pockets with more money. Seat
> belts/airbags justified keeping speeds up, speeds up, more gas.
>
>
Actually the RATES never climbed, in fact they have continued to go
down slightly if you look at the information from the Highway Safety
Administration. The rates are based on deaths per million miles driven
and they are on a downturn.
Everybody points to the Oil Embargo Days of the 70s, reduction in
speeds and fall in absolute number of deaths. However, this is actually
a rather stunning proof that "correlation is not causation". While the
number of deaths went down, the number of miles driven decreased even
more (related to gas prices and availability). The deaths per million
miles driven stayed roughly the same.
The stats are all on the Highway Safety Administration's website
and they might be in the Statistical Abstract of the US (also available
on the web or in a library reference area near you).
Airbags are another rather interesting thing. If you look at the
Congressional testimony, they were originally touted and mandated as an
added safety measure to keep safe those who REFUSED to wear their
seatbelts. Ooops.
Seatbelt laws, on the other hand were largely put in at the request
of automakers. The original deal was that if a certain number of states
enacted mandatory seatbelt laws, then automakers could put off mandatory
airbags. The most interesting, thing is that by the time the cutoff for
getting airbags installed came around, the marketplace had already
spoken and they were available as standard equipment on most cars. Go
figger. |