How dangerous it is to move around America, and how that changed. The road record runs from 1899: deaths per hundred million vehicle-miles fell from 24.09 in 1921 — the first year the government estimated how far Americans drove, and the worst rate ever measured — to 1.08 in 2014 and 1.27 in 2023, roughly nineteen times safer per mile, while the annual toll fell only from its 1972 peak of 54,589 to 42,789 in 2024 because the country drove enormously more. Also the four means of making the same trip compared on BTS's own numerators and denominators, where a motorcycle mile is about 41,700 times as likely to kill you as a scheduled-airline mile and a car mile about 862 times; why 'aviation deaths' is not airline deaths, since 414 of 2019's 452 were general aviation and four were on a scheduled airline; the third of road deaths who were outside a vehicle, including 6,272 pedestrians; the decade since 2014 in which the rate stopped improving; and a bridge-maintenance backlog running from 19.5% of deck area rated poor in Rhode Island to 0.9% in Utah. Distinct from Tariffs & Trade, which covers freight and trade routes rather than safety.
Connect Real Dots · https://connectrealdots.com/transportation-safety