auto and pedestrian safety facts

Auto & Pedestrian Safety Facts & Statistics

Heading out into the community, whether inside a car or strolling on foot, is one of the most dangerous things we do each day. Here are some sobering facts and statistics related to auto & pedestrian safety:

1. About 18,000(?) children are killed each year in auto accidents. xxxx more are seriously injured.

2. There are between 600 and 800 child pedestrian deaths every year, and between 40,000 and 50,000 serious injuries.

3. A car accident occurs around every six seconds in the United States.

4. Nine-percent of drivers admit to driving drunk within the last month. The scary part is, people tend to grossly under-report such things in surveys.

5. Drunk drivers are responsible for around 32% of all traffic fatalities.

6. Children ages 4 to 8 who no longer ride in a booster seat are 25 times more likely than younger children to sustain serious abdominal injuries. Abdominal injuries have become one of the most common injuries, and serious injuries can occur even in slow crashes.

7. Around half of all 4-7-year-olds were improperly restrained in 2007, either not in a booster seat (35%) or not wearing a seatbelt at all.

8. Among children who do not wear seatbelts, one of the leading causes of serious injury is hard left turns. Unrestrained children can be thrown through a car window or go head-first into a windshield and be killed even in low-speed, non-collision accidents.

9. Roughly 200 of the 370 fetuses killed every year in U.S. vehicle crashes would be saved if pregnant women wore seatbelts.

10. Around 35 kids die every year from being left in a hot car.

11. When temperatures outside the car are 80-100 degrees, the temperature inside a parked car can be 131-172 degrees. It can take as little as 5 minutes of being inside a locked car for a child to stop breathing.

12. 54% of drivers admit to talking on cell phones while driving in the last month. Forty-percent admit driving 15 m.p.h. or more over the speed limit, and 57% admit speeding through a yellow light.

13. Driving while texting or otherwise distracted can be as dangerous as driving drunk.

14. Running red lights causes an estimated 95,000 crashes and 1,000 deaths in the United States each year.

15. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that in 2007, more than 5,000 crash deaths would have been prevented if occupants had been wearing seat belts.'

16. It's estimated by the NHTSA that safety belts saved the lives of 15,147 people in 2007.

17. Airbags deploy at nearly 200 m.p.h., and are designed to hit the average man in the chest, which is why children are often injured by them, as they strike their head.

More than just statistics . . .

* Child killed at car wash
A child who was supposed to be waiting on the lawn while his family washed the family car, stepped out into the lot and was struck and killed by a truck. ...

References:

1) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
2) NHTSA; averaged statistics.
3) NHTSA
4) AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey, 2007-08; (add under-reporting of bad behavior ref)
5) NHTSA
6) NHTSA
7) NHTSA
8) David Viano, former safety researcher for General Motors and consultant for safety firm ProBiomechanics
9) University of Michigan Study, published in American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, April 2008
10) Jan Null, Meteorologist and hyterthermia, expert from SanFranCisco State University
11) CDC reports
12) AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey, 2007-08
13) National Safety Council
14) NHTSA
15) Larry Copeland, "Money steers seat belt debate," USA Today, 5-14-09, p. 3A
16) Consumer reports, "Oops! Americans report risky beha vior," March 2009, p. 7
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