Tom Vanderbilt points out that the number of people killed by the acceleration problem reported in some Toyota cars is but a fraction of the number of people killed in backover accidents in driveways or parking lots.
According to various reports, 19 deaths have been associated with Toyota’s gas pedal problem over the past decade. But over the same decade, a total of 21,110 people have been killed in Toyota vehicles, with an additional 1,261 killed in Lexus cars (based on analyzing 1999-2008 fatality data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Almost none of these deaths had anything to do with technology, faulty or otherwise. Almost all of them were the result of driver behavior.
Most accidents are caused by driver error.
Yesterday I sat through a left turn signal waiting for the fool in front of me to pay attention to the road, not the cell phone he was using.
I don’t want to ban cell phones while driving, I do it from time to time. But I do think that people that cause more than one accident ought to have their licenses yanked.
March 15th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Your blog looks nice, however it would be better if you can use lighter colors as well as a professional design. This will ensure that a lot more readers come to check it out.
Informative post by the way!