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Traffic Fatalities Down. So what?

A recent article at insidenova.com reported that Virginia had 800 traffic fatalities in 2008 -- down from 1,026 in 2007.  I guess that's suppposed to be good news, but I've never cared much for statistics, because you can make the numbers mean anything you want them to mean by the way you report them.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't applaud safer cars and more diligent law enforcement or the high cost of gasoline or the bad economy or whatever the reasons were that traffic fatalities declined.  However, if I'm the mother of a teenager who died, then those statistics are meaningless.

The fact remains that Northern Virginia highways are crowded with people going too fast, with drivers using their cell phones to call or, worse, to send and receive text messages, and that many of drivers and passengers who died were not wearing seatbelts.  Alcohol and speed continue to be responsible for traffic fatalities. Of the four traffic deaths that occurred over the Christmas/New Year holiday, two of them were in Fairfax County.  No one who died was wearing a seatbelt, and alcohol was a factor in one of them.  That's too many.