{"id":157407794,"date":"2009-12-27T20:23:14","date_gmt":"2009-12-27T20:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=157407794"},"modified":"2009-12-27T20:23:14","modified_gmt":"2009-12-27T20:23:14","slug":"u-s-car-accident-cost-164-2-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=157407794","title":{"rendered":"U.S. car accident cost: $164.2 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a commercial for On-Star automatic crash response &quot;This can help save your life.&quot; Which seems like a continuation of the never ending &quot;safe crashing&quot; mentality which has actually done very little to improve car safety or reduce injuries. One of these days hopefully we will learn to put pressure on &quot;safe driving&quot; over &quot;safe crashing&quot; but till that day it got me thinking about the 37,261 traffic fatalities and the 2,346,000 traffic injuries by the 124,124,523 drivers*. That is 1 in  52 drivers that could use this service annually.<br \/>\nMy point in this post is everyone could use safer roads. And rest easy, drivers&#8217; in Maryland take a grueling 20 question test before being allowed to drive.<br \/>\n************************************************************<br \/>\nBy Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer<br \/>\nNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) &#8212; Auto accidents cost each American more than $1,000 a year, 2-1\/2 times the cost of the traffic jams that frustrate the nation&#8217;s drivers, according to a report issued Wednesday.<br \/>\nThe motorist advocacy group AAA said accidents cost $164.2 billion each year, which based on the methodology used in the report comes to an annual per person cost of $1,051.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nYet, the annual tally of motor vehicle-related fatalities barely registers as a blip in most people&#8217;s minds.&quot;<br \/>\nThe nation needs to change its &quot;cultural complacency&quot; regarding accident deaths on its roads,<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nElly Martin, a spokeswoman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told CNNMoney.com that the cost of accidents to society could be even greater than what the AAA study is predicting.<br \/>\nMartin said a prior study by her group concluded&quot;that the cost to society was $230.6 billion in 2000 and the likelihood is that it is even greater today.&quot;<br \/>\n&quot;Society is paying a huge price for motor vehicle crashes on our roadways,&quot; she said. To top of page<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n*Drivers are calculated the same way cyclists are counted &#8211; by their primary means of transportation to work.<br \/>\nOn-Star: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.onstar.com\/us_english\/jsp\/plans\/acr.jsp\">https:\/\/www.onstar.com\/us_english\/jsp\/plans\/acr.jsp<\/a><br \/>\nCNNMoney.com: <a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/03\/05\/news\/economy\/AAA_study\/\">https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/03\/05\/news\/economy\/AAA_study\/<\/a><br \/>\nRelated:<br \/>\nCrash costs per mile of roadway &#8211; MD in top ten worst<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baltimorespokes.org\/article.php?story=20090710080737893\">https:\/\/www.baltimorespokes.org\/article.php?story=20090710080737893<\/a>oldId.20091227202314871<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a commercial for On-Star automatic crash response &quot;This can help save your life.&quot; Which seems like a continuation of the never ending &quot;safe crashing&quot; mentality which has actually done very little to improve car safety or reduce injuries. One of these days hopefully we will learn to put pressure on &quot;safe driving&quot; over &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=157407794\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;U.S. car accident cost: $164.2 billion&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157407794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157407794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157407794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157407794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157407794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157407794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157407794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}