Monday, August 18, 2014

OECD: U.S. Tanking on Road and Highway Safety

The latest OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the authoritative source for cross-international highway fatality data, recently reported their 2012 statistics. The results of U.S. performance versus 23 other nations reporting is, in a word, horrible.

Not only has the U.S. fallen from 6th of 24 nations in fatality rates to 15th since 2000, six nations have roughly half the fatality rates of the U.S. now. In other words, we have at least 15,000 EXCESS fatalities than the "best six" -- Iceland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK. In the U.S., performance can be be seen by looking at the longer trend. We were number one - with the safest roads - among the 14 nations reporting in 1970. The rate in France was just over three times the U.S. rate in 1970, while in 2012 it comes in at 10% less than the U.S.

The rates per mile/km of vehicle travel represent the best data, and are buried deep in the report for a reason; they are embarrassing to any nation dropping through the ranks like the U.S. And show superior performance by nations at the bottom decades ago.

Access the full report in PDF.

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