And yet, Americans have fewer accidents per mile than Europeans. This was true even 30 years ago, before the push against drunk driving.
Added: Actually, according to this (p 22), most of Europe has, over the course of the 21st century, overtaken America. Much of that is catching up to the American approach to drunk driving, but there are other things going on, since (as the chart says) America was ahead in 1970, before it became concerned with drunk driving. Anyhow, I doubt that rigorous license standards are new.
(I haven’t verified that that statistic is correct; I’m taking it on trust.)
The US is much less densely populated than Europe. Are more of those miles that Americans drive on nice straight wide near-deserted roads?
Europe and the US are both big varied places. I bet those accident rates are highly variable. What do you see if you break them down by population density, urban versus rural, rich versus poor, etc.?
We should probably concern ourselves with fatality rates (serious disability rates probably tracks this). Because of differences in average speed, I expect the typical rural accident to be much more severe.
And yet, Americans have fewer accidents per mile than Europeans. This was true even 30 years ago, before the push against drunk driving.
Added: Actually, according to this (p 22), most of Europe has, over the course of the 21st century, overtaken America. Much of that is catching up to the American approach to drunk driving, but there are other things going on, since (as the chart says) America was ahead in 1970, before it became concerned with drunk driving. Anyhow, I doubt that rigorous license standards are new.
(I haven’t verified that that statistic is correct; I’m taking it on trust.)
The US is much less densely populated than Europe. Are more of those miles that Americans drive on nice straight wide near-deserted roads?
Europe and the US are both big varied places. I bet those accident rates are highly variable. What do you see if you break them down by population density, urban versus rural, rich versus poor, etc.?
Europeans are more likely to live in cities. City traffic produces more accidents per mile.
We should probably concern ourselves with fatality rates (serious disability rates probably tracks this). Because of differences in average speed, I expect the typical rural accident to be much more severe.