Not to rain on anyone's parade, but in announcing a new blitz by Alabama State Troopers for next week, the Governor's Office and the Department of Public Safety are taking credit for a drop in the highway fatality rate, saying previous crackdowns are responsible. Not so fast. As you can see by a story in today's Washington Post, traffic fatalities are down almost everywhere in the U.S., including lots of states with no such traffic blitz. We all want safer roads, but there are many factors that contribute to the number of accidents and fatalities. For example, there was a huge drop in the number of miles driven in June by Alabamians, the 6th largest drop in the country. If that reduction in cars on the highways continues in August, it will result in a reduction in the number of fatalities compared to last August. Remember that when the Governor brags about the success of next week's ticket blitz.
I said the exact same thing yesterday on the AL.com blog.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder how stupid they really think we are.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Great minds think alike..(-:
ReplyDeleteThe success of the blitz pre-dates the change in the amount of miles being driven. Look at the statistics for just those weeks when the safety blitz is on and then look at the preceding weeks and the post-blitz weeks and you'll see that it IS working.
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