Millions of Americans climb into their cars every day to get to work, to shop, to visit family and friends and for a host of other reasons.
“Tragically,” Jay W. Dankner, managing partner of the top New York auto accident injury law firm of Dankner Milstein, P.C. said, “many of those unsuspecting drivers behind the wheel of their cars, and their unwary passengers will actually be traveling on what recent studies show are some of the most dangerous roads in the industrialized world.”
It wasn’t always this way. Just one generation ago, driving in the United States was safer. Fatality rates 30 years ago in the US were approximately 10 percent lower than in Canada and Australia, two other affluent nations with a network of open roads and highways.
According to a recent article in The New York Times, the United States has turned into a “disturbing outlier country.” The Times reported that the auto fatality rate in the U.S. is about 40 percent higher than Canada’s or Australia’s right now.
The article surprisingly went on to say that even a country as small as Slovenia, which is not even in the same league as the US in terms of economic wealth indices, the has a much lower percentage of accidents on per capita driver basis than the U.S. According to the Times, in 1990 the death rate on Slovenians roadways was more than five times as high as those in the U.S. Today, the Slovenians have safer roads.
“about 10,000 fewer Americans each year said, Jay W. Dankner, managing partner of the top New York auto accident injury law firm
“Had the United States kept pace with the rest of the the world” Dankner explained, “about 10,000 fewer Americans each year — or almost 30 every day — Would be killed. Instead, more people die in car crashes than from gun violence”.
As Dankner noted, “other countries have systematically analyzed the main causes of crashes and addressed them efficiently and quickly – such as lower speed limits, more speed cameras and stiffer penalties for lack of seat belt use (one in seven Americans don’t use them – and the use of hand-held mobile devices). We need to do likewise”.
