How Great Britain reduced motor vehicle deaths 22-fold over 75 years - Our World in Data

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

A century ago, these were the cars on Britain’s roads. Forget driving lessons or tests; to get behind the wheel legally, all you needed was a paper license, which cost the equivalent of around 25 pence today.

Cars had no seatbelts and, of course, no airbags. There were no mirrors to see traffic behind. No flashing indicators, so your signal to turn left or right was simply sticking your arm out. The brakes were poor, and emergency braking was impossible. Steering was stiff and clunky, and the headlights were weak, making it difficult to see much at night.

Combine this with the lack of pavements for pedestrians, the lack of signs or traffic signals, and the absence of enforced rules, and you can understand why it was a dangerous time to be on the roads.

Throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, between 5,000 and 7,000 people died in road accidents each year.

Per mile driven, the death rate declined 22-fold since 1950. . . .

If road deaths per mile driven were still as high as in 1950, then the UK would not see 1,700 road deaths per year, but 37,000.

Link: 

How Great Britain reduced motor vehicle deaths 22-fold over 75 years - Our World in Data

https://www.nsc.org/newsroom/nsc-estimates-over-44,000-traffic-deaths-in...

Since the populations of the U.S. and Great Britain differ by a factor of about 5, of course direct comparisons between motor vehicle fatalities in the two countries do not make much sense.

Still, if Great Britain had the same population as the U.S., their annual road fatalities would be around 8,500. Whereas the actual number of fatalities in the U.S. has been over 40,000 annually every year since 2019 - and in fact for 56 of the past 63 years (there was a dip to just below 40,000 annual deaths 2008-2015, but a significant ramp-up to above 40,000 again since then).

So in fact the U.S. has seen a significant rise in annual deaths since about 2013, and the deaths per vehicle and per mile traveled have plateaued over that same time period.

Whereas we note a continual downward trend in these same numbers in the data from Great Britain.

Great Britain has reduced traffic fatalities per mile driven by a factor of about 22 since 1950, whereas the U.S. has reduced fatalities per mile driven as well - but by a far smaller factor: About a 5.5-fold reduction since 1950.

If the U.S. had the same fatalities per mile driven as Great Britain, about 33,000 more people annually would be spared death by motor vehicle - our annual motor vehicle fatality total would be around 11,000 rather than 44,000.

See the U.S. traffic fatality data over time charted here: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/dea...

The difference between the U.S. and countries such as Great Britain that have dramatically lower traffic fatality numbers comes down to policies and infrastructure.

If motor vehicle travel speed is always given highest priority at every level of design and policy, road deaths inevitably increase. If safety and preservation of human life are prioritized, we see the emergence of far different policies and infrastructure - as outlined in this article:

https://ourworldindata.org/britain-safest-roads-history