Biggest Lie of the Year 2007

Well, this USA Today headline gets our vote for the biggest lie of 2007:
"Lowest fatality rate ever on roads in '06"

You have to be really delusional, and apparently USA Today and Transportation Secretary Mary Peters both are, to statistically claim this.

Some 43,000 people died last year, about the same as the year before and in 1996 and much of the last quarter century.  Your odds of getting killed in a car accident remained about the same (really high, the third highest preventable cause of death).
For teenagers, cars are still the leading cause of death.

However, you get to drive more miles before you get killed. And that, they claim, means you didn't statistically die at the same rate as before.  Before you would drive 10,000 miles before you got killed. Now you can drive 15,000 miles before you get killed!   Statistics don't die, but you do.

Comments

[Greg Marshall]

There is truth in the statement. As a group we are driving more with less death. How a statistic affects an individual is always uncertain. Various groups within that overarching statistic are not doing as well. An article in our local paper quoting the insurance industry stated that 45-65 year olds on motorcycles have surpassed teenaged boys as most likely to die in a traffic accident.