I’ve mentioned this a few times on Twitter, and I think I’m going to expand a bit here. Fear-mongering is nothing new on the part of the media. We need to be careful though when the New York Times throws a figure like 10,000 Swine Flu deaths since April. 10, 000 seems like a big number, and it would be easy to become concerned. However, as I recently posted to Twitter, there have been 16,626 people killed in traffic accidents since the start of this year (as of October).
It strikes me that these two domains bear comparison. After all, both are national statistics, both are more likely to occur in cities, and both can occur even if preventative measures are taken. If one is going to panic over the swine flu deaths they might as well stay off the streets as well. We need to be careful about what causes us to panic, or we might never leave our homes.
Well said. I suspect the 16,626 figure doesn’t include people who died from lung-related diseases, cancers and other nasties that cars pump out into the atmosphere, or the ilness from noise pollution. Including that would make cars a major killer: As this post from the ‘Copenhagenize’ blog graphically shows, cars should carry health warnings:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/07/driving-kills-health-warnings.html
The same blog suggests that the motor culture treats cars like ‘the sacred bull ing the china shop’: Telling everyone to keep out of the way and keep safe, but not actually dealing with the issue: cars kill people.
Sorry, ‘Sacred Bull’ post here:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/sacred-bull-in-societys-china-shop.html
Not saying I agree with everything, but it’s thought provoking.
It is a pretty good article. We are definitely addicted to cars. I wish we had a better way, but it would take an entire redesign of society to get rid of them. Although I do appreciate the idea of a driver focused safety campaign.