from Greater Greater Washington by David Alpert and Andrew Bossi
Allstate released a report yesterday ranking metropolitan areas by frequency of car collisions. The Washington region came out dead last, [and Baltimore came in next to last] spawning headlines like "DC has worst drivers in America."
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What’s wrong with jumping from crash frequencies to conclusion that Washington area drivers are the nation’s worst? It puts the blame or credit all on the drivers, rather than the road designers, licensing authorities, and police enforcing the laws. It also treats all crashes from minor fender bender to fatality the same.
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Allstate ranked areas based on the average time between claims per driver. If we adjust these numbers to equalize vehicle miles traveled per capita, then Maryland comes out with the fewest collisions. So this story could easily have also borne the headline, "Maryland drivers the best in the nation." Are they the best or among the worst? We don’t really know enough to say.
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[B’ Spokes: Wait, what? Whether we live in sprawl or a dense urban environment we all do the same day to day stuff. So what if Maryland spends and extra 20 miles (or whatever) per day doing the same stuff everyone else does with fewer miles and that makes us safer?
Vehicle miles traveled is really just a scam to justify expressways, nothing against expressways but they don’t make other streets safer, they just let us travel farther and that’s about it. It comes down to doing day to day things that everyone else does and for Washington and Baltimore that means a higher frequency of crashes.
Note: WABA is using this for a call for safer streets:
"We have no interest in assigning blame here. But being the worst in the nation is a rather strong indication of a problem, and we are asking Mayor Gray to raise the priority of roadway safety and start working toward a solution."
https://www.waba.org/blog/2011/09/how-will-district-respond-to-worst-drivers-report/ ]
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GGW ref: https://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/11906/are-washingtons-drivers-really-the-worst/
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