Interesting research came out of the Michigan Transportation Research Institution this month. Basically, they found that there has been a recent larger than expected drop in road fatalities in the last year. Their research, which was presented in the June issue of Injury Prevention, found that there has been a decrease in rural driving and in leisure driving.
It’s clear that gas prises, unemployment rates, and general economic belt tightening is the cause for the reduction in leisure driving. It also seems that these same issues may be hitting the rural areas of the country harder and as a result, there is the same reasoning with this reduction.
"Rural driving is more risky than urban driving primarily because of high speeds, but there is evidence that it has recently decreased more substantially than urban driving," said Sivak, research professor and head of UMTRI’s Human Factors Division. "Analogously, leisure driving is more risky than commuter driving because of higher speeds, greater involvement of alcohol and more nighttime driving, but we are more likely to reduce leisure driving, if needed, than commuter driving."
Anything that reduces road deaths has to be greeted with some relief. Hopefully, it will be learned from. We can save lives on the road, lets keep it that way.
